If you're like us, you mark up your sheet music with a pencil quite a bit. That first concerto or method book acquired many years ago shows its age and signs of being handled many times. Our parts of quintets from wedding gigs has become dog eared and ragged over the years. Despite that, it still works and we always get through the gig by dealing with the rips that have been repaired with clear tape.
The world around us continues to move in the direction of being paperless. The music world continues to be stubbornly paper reliant. An account from 100 years ago would have no idea how to function with the modern spreadsheets and other digital tools their modern day counterparts use. Aside from reading recycled paper, a brass played from 100 years ago would notice almost no difference in the sheet music on their stand. Will we be the last to make the digital transition? Do we need to abandon paper and filing cabinets stuffed with dead trees?
Around the turn of the century, we began to see publishers begin offering sheet music for download on the web. Fear about piracy was rampant. This was in the era of Napster and the terror the recording industry felt was on the minds of other industries. This caused a number of providers to either avoid paperless delivery altogether or adopt a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system that made the digital copy so difficult to work with many consumers tried once and never again. Over time, many providers have switched to file formats and delivery systems that are more customer friendly such as the ubiquitous PDF.
In the intervening years since digital delivery has taken hold it still culminates in the same end point. However you get the file or whatever format, it still means a visit to a printer. The delivery mechanism has changed for many, but it's still ink and paper that gets used at the performance. Will that change? The New York Times did a story recently on some taking the charge.
