Avi Amon | Musician

I purchase something online, I am still nervous the internet is going to break and steal all of my money.  For example, I was just buying ____ for ____ (CAN’T REVEAL THE SECRET, SORRY), and the “server reset” screen came up and I had a mini panic attack.

Then I hit refresh and it was cool. 

Good story, bro.

Literally.

Get your act together.

This post is inspired by my roommate, KIETH, and his love for show-choir and show-choir music.  And a little disclaimer: these are comments on the quality of companies’ websites, not the quality of the companies themselves (i.e. please still publish my music). 

A few months ago, KIETH and I were chatting about getting more exposure for our a-cappella arrangements (too cool, right?).  He had just gotten himself listed on Showchoirbuzz.com, which as he put it, is “one of the main hubs for new and printed show-choir/band arrangements,” which I thought was pretty cool.  But go to the site. It is a clown-college relic from the days of 28.8K modems and Microsoft FrontPage.  I was hoping that this was a limited case, so I did some more research, looking for other examples. But it’s not - Showchoirmusic.com is just as bad. 

Perhaps this is just a show choir thing?  Too many jazz squares, not enough HTML coding, hmmm?  I started looking at publishing companies who’ve published music I’ve sung in various choirs.  Santa Barbara, Cambiata Press,… Hello geocities!

Is this really the standard? (The flames really move!)

Admittedly, they aren’t ALL terrible.  Mammoths like Alfred and Hal Leonard (not to be confused with Stew Leonard’s, the second most delicious grocery store on the planet, after Wegman’s) have good things going on.  H.L. even has a trendy i-tunes album-flip feature on it’s homepage.  And Schirmer, though bland, is just fine as well.  Still though, they’re not as great as they could be - where’s the ‘featured new artist’ section, feedback/review option, or any sort of interactivity?  Carl Fischer and Walton are in desperate need of an update.  Both represent great composers like Randall Thompson and Eric Whitacre but look like they might be better suited for dental cleaning supplies.

Though these huge music houses do publish the music, they depend on third-party distributors to actually make the sales. These sites are the first point of contact for music buyers and - with a few exceptions- are a huge embarrassment.  Publishers will oftentimes put links to their distributors on their website; have a look through the nonsense on Hal Leonard’s page here.  J.W. Pepper, one of the largest distributors out there - particularly for Hal Leonard - actually has a decent website.  Great search functions, easily navigable, simple design.  But then there are gems like Southern Music and St. Joe Music.  Not even real.  In general, it seems as though the distributors are WAY worse than the actual publishers.  I guess if it was me, I wouldn’t want to be represented in any way by something so silly, even if it is just a third party.

I totally get the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mantra.  And look, I know that at the end of the day, I’m just talking about sheet music for choirs.  Are these websites functional?  Sure.  But we upgrade because things can get BETTER at what they do.   And good taste doesn’t cost money, either.  Implementing it certainly can, but it doesn’t have to break the bank - you just need to be smart!  A website upgrade is one of the easiest, most cost efficient capital improvements possible.  Hell, I’ll do it.  And the level design ability I posses is easily trumped by any A/V club kid in high school these days - just think what a professional could come up with.

Good design is not necessarily an indication of a good product, but it necessarily correlates to an increase in interest.  If you already have and can deliver the goods, why not make it look better and attract more people along the way? 

I guess this brings up advertising as a real social concept.  Is advertising (and should it be) worth it?  I don’t really want to get into a moral discussion on the values of marketing but it’s something to think about.

The problem is that, in theory, these should be some of the coolest sites on the Internet; after all, creating music and supporting its creation is one of the more beautiful endeavors on this planet.  Publishing/distribution websites (which are the catalogs of the age) should be expanding people’s musical tastes by introducing them to new composers and genres, and making music education more exciting.  By implementing good design, these companies can become an integral part of this discovery.  I firmly believe that most music will eventually become a solely ‘independent’ pursuit (record deals, publishing, etc), but if these companies want any shot of surviving, they’re going to have to catch up with everyone else.  To borrow a quote from Dr. Horrible, “The status is not quo, people!”

And one more thing: stop using Internet Explorer.