Digital/Hard Copies of Music

There is a tool that can be easily overlooked that is a staple in the advancement of music technology.  A copy machine is incredibly helpful, especially within the field of music education.  As long as copyright laws are being followed, having a copy machine is essential for making music come alive.  A scanner is also helpful in this respect, so an image/PDF file can be make of this music as well to be printed at convenience.  There is a website, imslp.org, that is a music library where the amount of music unrestricted by copyright law is overflowing.  Users upload the music they have; they range in full scores, full parts, and even come with recordings of all different qualities to refer to as well.  These files of music are usually in PDF, where they can be easily printed from any source.  I have used it plenty of times to obtain music.

Directors of musical ensembles need to purchase music to distribute to their students.  As long as they have one purchased original of each part and score that they own, they are allowed to make one copy of it.  Hard copies of music are useful in order to not have anything written on the original parts.  It is said in the field of music that the most important tool you can own in music is a pencil with an eraser.  Conductors want to share their ideas of how the music should be performed within rehearsal to their members/students, and the best way to remember it all is through writing the information down as it is said.  In broadway shows and pit orchestras, having a pencil is essential, because cuts and even different pieces of music are inserted all the time, and everything is always changing.  Usually, original books are used, and they explain to erase everything by the time the book is done being used.  Since erasing originals can be annoying, music directors revert to making a copy to distribute out to students, so it can be easily written on without any guilt or worrying about ruining the originals.  Having a copy machine and scanners, therefore, has made it very easy for performances to thrive in schools and throughout other outside ensembles.