Professor John Butt Plays Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier

When we got word that John Butt, Music Professor at the University of Glasgow, had released a new CD set of Bach's forty-eight preludes and fugues, it seemed only right that we should get it for the Whittaker Library.  John Butt is an eminent Bach scholar and performer.

So here is the CD, ready for borrowing! DETAILS

Who has the Copyright When You Don't Know Who Wrote It?

There's new UK copyright legislation that takes care of 'orphan works' - publications where you don't know the author or composer.

IAML (UK and Ireland)* has posted useful information on their website about this.  Read it HERE.

'29 October 2014 saw the implementation of legislation to facilitate the use of orphan works in the UK. An orphan work is defined as a copyright work or performance for which one or more of the rights holders either cannot be identified or cannot be located, thus making it impossible to seek permission for use of the work.
Use of orphan works is now permitted under two different routes: the implementation of the EU Directive 2012/28/EU, or under the UK Licensing Scheme.' Read more HERE.

*IAML is the International Association of Music Libraries.  We're in the UK and Ireland branch.

Black Friday? Library Help with History Essays and Band Arrangements

Black Friday?

If you have an assignment deadline, this isn't just black Friday - the whole weekend is spoken for!  This weekend, we have students writing essays about Ives, Handel and Purcell. Meanwhile our Scottish Music degree students are working on their scores for their bands and ensembles.

Can the Library help?  We believe we can!

Here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, we have plenty of online information.  

Studying Ives, Handel or Purcell? 

• You can find plenty of info on JSTOR. 
• There's more on Oxford Music Online.  
• Naxos music streaming service is great for quick info - each recording comes with a pdf of the accompanying booklet.

Working on a band arrangement?

• The Whittaker Library has books on using music notation software.
• RILM database has articles about rehearsing with your group once you've written the score!  (search rehearsal, or band practice)
• See how times have changed.  British Library Sounds lets you hear historic performances - search in the World and Traditional Music section.
• Searching Scottish music group in SCRAN will also bring a smile!

ALL these useful online sources are available through the Whittaker Library's Electronic Resources web pages.  Or via Moodle (look for the library links under Student Support Services!)

Learning and Teaching Styles: One Size Does Not Fit All

Here's a post about teaching, which recently came up on the American Vitae blog. If you teach, or you're learning to teach, or you're just learning about your own learning style, take a look at this:-

• In the Classroom, One Size Does Not Fit All

Author: David Gooblar (Adjunct/Writer/Website Proprietor at PedagogyUnbound.com) -

• Vitae homepage - click HERE.

Blasts from the Past (Archival Recordings)

Early 20th Century Music Interpretation - Phonobase.org

You may not have come across Phonobase.org - it's a French database of very old sound recordings.  If you're curious how things were first performed, this could provide hours of productive amusement.

Here is Phonobase introducing itself to you:-

"Description

Phonobase : www.phonobase.org gathers sound excerpts and photos taken from early commercial cylinders and records made from 1888 to 1914 approximately, and distributed in France and Europe mainly.
It contains also amateur and private recordings made during the same period on wax cylinders.
Photos and audio tracks are watermarked. Complete unmarked audio and photos are available upon request for broadcasting or publishing purposes.

Access to the database

Recent additions

Thematic search

Five Things You Should Know about Grove (Oxford Music Online)

Here's a blogpost written by Jessica Barbour, about Oxford Music Online.  Jessica blogs for Oxford University Press, so she has an inside view!

Oxford Music Online used to be called Grove's Dictionary of Music.  Some folk still use the old name.  Anyway, whatever you choose to call it, it's the world's best and most famous music encyclopedia.  Read on:- 

Five Things You Should Know about Grove

New to Digital Theatre Plus:

Three new operas from Gran Teatre del Liceu have just been just added to Digital Theatre Plus

You can now watch Rigoletto, L'Elisir D'Amore and L'Incoronazione di Poppea wherever you teach and bring opera direct to your students. Telling tales of love, deceit, curses and comedy, these truly magnificent operas bring the cultural world of European opera to your classroom.

Digital Theatre Plus. (Click here)

The Gran Teatre del Lieu Collection, now consisting of six titles, can also be used as a complementary resource to their recently released Royal Opera House Collection.

Are you Talented from Birth, or Did you Work at it?

Interesting post on the Bibliolore blog, about the nature-versus-nurture argument:-

Practising vs. Born That Way

You know what Urtext is - but have you tried locating a Manuscript or early Imprint?

RISM is the website you're looking for!  (It stands for Repertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales)

Click here for the search page.

What did Bizet have to do with Ossian? New Catalogue Reveals All ... *

We've just heard about a new online publication:-  

The Bizet Catalogue

http://digital.wustl.edu/bizet/

"Compiled by Hugh Macdonald and managed by the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University, St Louis.
"This is primarily a list of Bizet's works, providing essential information about the history and content of each one. It gives information on manuscript and printed sources, on documentary materials relating to the composition, performance and publication of each work, and is intended to provide a full historical documentation of Bizet's work as composer and transcriber." 

* Bizet, plainly intrigued by James Macpherson's Highland Ossianic tales, wrote an overture, La Chasse d'Ossian.  The work is now lost.  Click the link to find out what's known about it!

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to help our performing artists with their teaching and learning information needs.  Our thanks go to Jennifer Ward , of the IAML Web Team, for pointing us towards this Bizet resource.

Early Career Music Librarian, UK or Republic of Ireland? £250 Prize for best Dissertation or Article!

Calling for submissions

E T Bryant Memorial Prize 

£250 awarded for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship

Details of this valuable award have  just gone live on the IAML(UK and Ireland) website.  If you're an early-career music librarian and have recently written a dissertation or significant paper on a music-librarianship related topic, you're strongly urged to enter your work for the E T Bryant Memorial Prize.  Similarly, if you know of any other recent librarianship students who completed such  work over the past five years, let them know about it!

Details are here:-  http://www.iaml.info/iaml-uk-irl/awards/bryant.html

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• The prize is awarded to a library and information science student or group of students, or to a librarian in their first five years in music librarianship, for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship.
• The prize is awarded for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship.
• The recipient(s) of the prize must be resident in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland during the year of entry
• Publication of the material during / within the previous five years does not preclude entry
• All entries must be submitted by the published closing date.

The prize will be presented each year to the winner at the Annual General Meeting of the IAML(UK & Irl) Branch, by representatives of IAML(UK & Irl) and The Music Libraries Trust.

A copy of the winning work will be retained in the IAML(UK & Irl) Library.

It's a Voyage of Discovery at the Whittaker Library

Before too long, the Whittaker Library will incorporate a discovery layer (it's called a Full Text Finder) which will enable users to explore both physical resources and all our electronic databases, all at once.  This should make it very much easier to get the most out of what the library holds.

Just imagine - supposing you're doing the Scottish music degree, and you decide there are five electronic databases that just might have useful info for you.  Right now, you'd need to look at each resource separately.  In future, you can search the lot, all together.  Watch this space for the announcement that the discovery layer has gone live.

Meanwhile, there are still surprises ... did you know that you can look up:-

• Scottish music in the African American Music Reference
• Nova Scotia or Cape Breton material in American Song
• Archival Gaelic song in British Library Sounds
• Niel Gow in Oxford Music Online or in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
• Strathspey or Ballads in SCRAN
• Scottish Music reported in times gone by, in Times Digital Archive
• Uist, Cape Breton, or Niel Gow, in The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online

. Why wait? Get exploring! 

We are the very helpful Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  

Meanwhile, Music is Live in Manchester Libraries ...

Are you from Manchester?  Got musical friends there?  Going back this weekend?  There's news of a week of live music in Manchester libraries, from Library Live:-
 
Read the article in the Independent, for a start:-
 

"Have a listen to some of the broadcasts this week - including the Vivaldi 'Manchester Sonatas'  being played live on Radio 3's In Tune this afternoon from the library.   Ros Edwards, Service Development Co-Ordinator for music,  may make an appearance on Guy Garvie's Radio 6 show next Sunday 16th  talking about some of the Henry Watson Music Library Treasures. 

"And if anyone is in the vicinity of Manchester Central Library this week its worth popping in - the whole place is humming - almost literally.  Lots happening all week, much of it musical.  Good advocacy for public libraries and music libraries ...
"Check out the events website too http://www.librarylive.co.uk/"

ELIA - What's It All About?

Coming to Glasgow next week, we welcome -

LOCATION/AESTHETICS 

13th ELIA Biennial Conference

ELIA, the European League of Institutes of the Arts, is 'the primary international network organisation of major arts education institutions & universities'.  Glasgow's very proud of its cultural identity, so it's a great place for this conference.

"This year’s conference theme focuses on the relationship between the creative and the city and the dynamic interplay between place, culture, creativity and the artist. Recognising that the arts are both the most local and the most international of activities - proud of their traditions and identity, but at their most exciting when they break down barriers and cross borders, LOCATION/AESTHETICS will explore the cultural, social and economic role that creative individuals and institutions play in creating and transforming a city, regional or national identity and place in the world."  CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO FIND OUT MORE.
"Four sub-themes have been identified to address more specific issues:
IDENTITY/DIVERSITY
REGIONALISM/GLOBALISM
HOMECOMING/NOMADISM
ECONOMY/CULTURE

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall is the main conference venue.  

Globe Player! Just Launched!

This weeks sees the launch of the Globe Player. Check it out for some wonderful Shakespeare productions:

www.globeplayer.tv

A review of the website: http://www.thefancarpet.com/newspage.aspx?n_id=10251

Sound and Music's British Music Collection is Alive and Well! Go and Look ...

The British Music Collection

Enquiries and Visits

The British Music Collection (formerly the BMIC), is still owned by Sound and Music, but it is currently located at the University of Huddersfield.

To ensure that all enquiries for this collection receive prompt attention, there is a dedicated email address for this, which can be accessed from the British Music Collection website or by emailing the Collection directly.

• Email: bmc@hud.ac.uk
• Website: http://www.britishmusiccollection.org.uk/
• BMC Catalogue: http://www.britishmusiccollection.org.uk/ - or, alternatively, via the Sound and Music website, http://www.soundandmusic.org/.

Readers wishing to make a visit to the Collection, please note that two working days' notice are required. The Collection is currently available from 9am until 4.30pm Monday to Friday (except bank holidays).