This is starting to irk me.
Score calls are a big part of a composer's game. You never know when you might be the winning submission, so you go for as many as you can (or can afford, as there is often a submission fee). Why is it that so few organizations posting score calls have not gotten into the internet age?
They still want you to snail mail a bunch of score pages, curriculae vitae, CD audio renderings and God knows what else. With a postmarked deadline. There might be a personal check for the submission fee, just waiting for someone to lift and alter to go cash for themselves, or just take your account number to do something nefarious with. It's a wasteful, slow process frought with possible disasters.
Everything necessary to take score submissions is available on the internet. You can receive scores as PDF docs in email. Ditto for mp3 sound realizations or live recordings. Don't want to take large mp3 files? There are hundreds of free audio storage sites online now, where artists can upload their mp3s for free, then supply the download URL in an email. What about submission fees? PayPal. Credit card option. On top of that, you have more options for utilizing the "anonymous" submission process using a blind jury. Deadlines? No problem. Every digital document has a time stamp and emails have a time arrival stamp.
There is no downside to this, that I can see. Score submission as it stands today is slow, iffy on destination, expensive and a huge waste of paper and other materials. I'm hoping we can slide off that dinosaur soon.
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I hear ya.
ReplyDeleteEven though I do not compose orchestrations, I know the industry does have a great degree of exclusivity, and because of that has (I believe) opted to maintain a system that isn't necessarily "aceppting" of the overall artist collective. While in some respects this is good--for instance, when it comes to top notch musicians maintaining a close circle of performance sharing, etc., when discussin composition and scoring, that become a different animal and I think requires some larger perameters of publication/exposure options. Even in writing fiction (my particular form when discussing publication) it has quickly adopted the contemporary model and is fast becoming nearly all electronic.
Boola-boola and let the drums beat for a new era in composiing as well, my friend.
--JC