As was sadly noted in last month’s related article, “A Man and His Music: Glendower Jones and Classical Vocal Reprints,” music stores are going under right and left—but one man and his astounding music collection are fighting to survive. Here we explore how Glendower Jones is working to adapt to a changing market to keep his music business alive.
American Art Song
When asked what is selling best, Glendower Jones answers instantly: American new music. Publishing and distributing new music has been a saving grace to CVR. Initially, Jones wanted to help composers looking for an alternative to the large publishing giants who were not interested in new vocal compositions. Now, he feels it may be his legacy to have kept the music in distribution and to help young composers get on their feet. He also acknowledges that “what’s kept [CVR] alive is having what no one else has.”
“Glendower Jones has a unique place in the music publishing industry,” says composer Lori Laitman. “I remember being amazed the first time that I spoke to him—because he already knew so much of my music. He has been wonderful to me as a composer.”
Many of the over 60 composers he publishes are being featured in art song reference books and textbooks. “Tom Cipullo, Richard Pearson Thomas, Lori Laitman, Christopher Berg, Ben Moore, Alan Louis Smith, Gene Scheer—that’s kind of interesting to see that our work is now in these books,” Jones says.
He also has advice for composers. “You can have a really good piece, but if the composer isn’t pushing it and getting singers to record it, it just kind of dies. If you write one song cycle, chances are no one is going to sing it. You really have to be prolific and have your stuff being sung a lot.
“[It] is really neat to see that my work is not in vain,” Jones continues. “Now, what happens to it is another matter, but maybe I made a dent in music history. The problem with me is what’s going to happen if I drop dead? It’s all just going to fall back to the composers, and there won’t be any continuity. I hope that somehow, if I can get the new website going, that maybe it will survive me—but that may be wishful thinking.”
New Website
The website Jones is counting on is the nearly year-old PDF purchase and print portion of the website designed by a local Arkansas programmer (www.classicalvocalreprints.com). More and more customers insist on instantly receiving their music. The new download site is intended to meet this need.
“I’d like to increase my customer base. I’m hoping this new website will become known worldwide.” Printing the music is not only labor intensive, but it is also costly. As Jones looks ahead, he recognizes that schlepping the boxes of printing paper and the boxes of printed music for shipment is going to become increasingly more difficult with each passing year.
The site is now live with close to 2,000 PDFs and growing each day, but it will be years before it will be how he wants it. As a one-man operation, putting 500 years of music up on the website is a challenge. In addition to scanning in the music, creating the online searchable catalog entry is time consuming. “It is not perfect; there definitely are some growing pains,” he says—but every day more music is available. In late September he managed to add 25 new pieces in one week.
The catalog grows and improves daily—in the meantime, he is happy to expedite additions of any special requests. He welcomes phone calls and insists that although he is busy with the website that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to talk. Many old friends (this writer included) have said they “didn’t want to bother him,” but he says, “Call anyway!” He would rather help a customer get the right thing the first time.
In addition to getting the technology to work, Jones is trying to ensure he complies with the differences in copyright law from country to country. “I am connected with the publishers and am a member of the Retail Print Music Dealers Association,” so it’s important to him to do it right.
Not all composers will be on the new website. Lori Laitman, for example, will ultimately offer her electronic files through www.musicaneo.com, while Jones will continue to offer the hard copies of her music.
It’s a tough market—the younger generation wants its music on an iPad. From an intellectual property standpoint, however, there is always a danger that once scanned your music will be sold or traded illegally. “Some people don’t understand that free is not free,” Jones laments. We all pay through higher prices, and the composers pay the most.
Industry
In many ways, Joseph Patelson enabled Jones to be ahead of the curve. Before tools like IMSLP and online vendors like Schubertline (www.schubertline.co.uk) or Sheet Music Direct, collector/publishers like Jones were the only place to find unpublished works and many were music hoarders. While many people look to Jones for new American music or rare unpublished works, not everyone realizes he is mainly a music dealer for publishers like Dover, C.F. Peters, Oxford, Barenreiter, Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard, and many others—often keeping things in stock that other vendors may need to have shipped from overseas.
Jones’ stock is just feet away from his desk, while many of the largest distributors (Amazon and Barnes and Noble) have their warehouses and call centers on opposite ends of the country, and their customer service representatives have no knowledge of the literature let alone the languages and composers. When you call CVR, you will likely get Jones, or his extremely patient wife, Marthe. Marthe is not only tolerant of the business that has been a centerpiece of their lives, but when she can, she helps prepare shipments and answer phones.
“You see, for many, we are a vendor of last resort,” Jones admits. “They can’t find something or can’t find it on time, and so we get the business because none of the other bigger companies know the answer.” He often does extensive research for customers, only to have them order it through someone else. For some, he’s the guy who knows about music, but that’s it. And younger students referred to him don’t always realize they can buy the music from him as well.
Jones’ understanding of the literature and willingness to help is a blessing, but when time is literally money for this nearly one-man show, unprepared questions or customers looking for repertoire advice can be frustrating. “‘What key is good for me?’ is a question only teachers, coaches, and the singers themselves can answer. I can tell you what keys I have available; I can’t tell you what key is good for you.
“My curiosity is what wastes time,” admits Jones. “Somebody will ask me something and I want to know the answer. Business-wise, I shouldn’t want to know the answer. I should just move on with my life and process that next order. [But] what’s the point if I can’t answer these questions for myself? If I don’t answer, it’s going to bug me. It’s the problem with not having a staff, I don’t always run it like a business would.”
Many have suggested he become a nonprofit, but he doesn’t want to focus on fundraising. Music is his passion. “I don’t know how to raise money. I’m not a businessperson; I’m just a person trying to do the best I can with limited resources. I was trained in music. I’m a product of what I’ve learned over life, but I’ve never taken an accounting or computer course.”
The odd marriage of the old original music (often with covers that are themselves works of art) with the technology that allows the business to survive is not lost on Jones. He is a self-described “Gutenbergian” (a reference to the first printed Gutenberg bible and a general love for the printed word) and needs to keep his feet in both worlds to survive. Customers today are a mix of the older generation who love calling in an order and holding a book in hand and a new generation that prefers online purchases and quick downloads to an iPad.
Jones has found Facebook to be his most powerful marketing tool. He frequently advertises discounts and also keeps followers abreast of new editions and new compositions of note via the site.
Although grateful for all of the customers he has had through the years, the current market is an enigma to Jones. “It’s so discouraging at times. You see your Facebook postings—almost 50,000 people are seeing these things—and you get one or two orders. It’s hard.” This is exactly why so many boutique publishers and music stores have gone out of business. Consumers now have easy access to library scans of out-of-print materials, Amazon can afford to ship for free, and copying and sharing other materials illegally is rampant.
NATS has done its best to stop the hemorrhage by requiring students to purchase original music for use in competitions and many teachers are doing their best to encourage legitimate edition acquisitions as well—but it seems to be a losing battle. Music theatre powerhouse composer Jason Robert Brown even weighed in on his website (www.jasonrobertbrown.com) in June of 2010 with a blog post titled, “Fighting with Teenagers: A Copyright Story.” It is an amusing—and sad—must-read.
The Future?
In this tumultuous industry, what is the future of CVR and boutique publishers like it? “I’m not going to retire; I can’t retire,” says Jones. “I love what I do. I’m really interested in retiring.”
As for the online business, time will tell, but he is hopeful. Online sales of printed music are strong. Sales from the PDF download site are small but improving steadily. For now, CVR is hanging on, but the publishing business model is forever changed and is a moving target. The fact is that in our economy, products that are valued survive and only companies that adapt will survive.
The question is do we value music and the composers that produced it? Will we continue to use bound volumes of music or will music stands and libraries of scores be replaced with computer tablets full of PDFs? Twenty years ago most of us never imagined life without the smooth worn scores littered with pencil marks and highlighter, so I don’t suppose we can fully anticipate what will happen next. Perhaps we could all try to find a balance between being tech savvy and being a Gutenbergian.
Whether you support CVR or other boutique dealers like it, purchase on Amazon, or visit the small music store in town, it is important to do the right thing—the legal thing—and buy the music. We can take personal responsibility for the music of the past, the present, and future by buying music honestly and encouraging others to do the same.
