Re: Do we really offer the future?

[Gilles]

Hi.

On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 09:52:54 -0400, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi Federico (et al.),
>
> > > I've thought for a long time that the right way to go is to seek
> > > public funds for engraving public domain contents
>
> > Me too.
>
> I think it’s telling that most of the non-publishing music world is
> going in exactly the opposite direction: schools are adding “musical
> entrepreneurship” courses, programs, and degrees all over, in an
> attempt to teach musicians how to avoid the trap of relying only on
> public funds; and there is a significant (and mostly successful)
> grassroots effort to abandon the dying “not-for-profit” model of
> musical organziations in favour of a model where pleasing the paying
> audience actually matters to some extent.
>
> > I started thinking about bringing LilyPond in music schools. Even 
> > though I never tried because of lack of time, I can imagine two major 
> > issues:
> > 1. LilyPond is not considered as a professional tool because it's 
> > not used by the publishing companies. In general schools teach what 
> > the market asks. That's why I think that this effort by Urs is 
> > important.
> > 2. Text input. Frescobaldi is doing a good job here, but still.
>
> From the [many] discussions I’ve had with music schools large and
> small, the second is *far* less important than the first. And rightly
> so: all other things being equal, higher education should be teaching
> students skills and tools [!!] which they can immediately apply to
> their careers.

This cannot be the overall guiding rule, if "progress" has any value at
all.
Is the sole expectation, of students attending music schools, to be
hired by a publishing company?

Personally, I think that it is equally wrong to teach (how to become
dependent of) proprietary products, the more so when a free (and more
fit to the task!) alternative exists. [Cf. M$-Office versus LaTeX for
typographic quality and consistency.]

> Unfortunately, as long as Lilypond is a pariah amongst
> publishers, it does a disservice to students to teach them Lilypond 
> at
> the expense of other things.

I might be wrong, but I think that the vast majority of music engraving
software users don't make their choice based on what a publishing 
company
uses.
LilyPond is at a disadvantage mainly because of marketing reasons (and
aversion to changing one's viewpoint on certain tasks).

As Urs mentioned, LilyPond would be a serious alternative for new
publishing houses.  Teaching it is offering business opportunities
for people so inclined.


Best,
Gilles