Jack Cooper - Guelph, ON Musician

We are pleased to announce that 16 songs by James Gordon have been activated as digital sheet music in our catalog and online store!  The songs have been prepared in leadsheet format and are available for $2.99 each + HST. You can preview the digital interactive experience by registering in our online site and ordering ‘The Song My Paddle Sings’ which is available for free.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working on developing content and a platform for delivering and selling digital interactive sheet music of (primarily) roots music singer/songwriters and instrumentalists. Having good ideas and a demanding day job doesn’t often produce the quickest results; I’ve had to satisfy myself with working on the project in between other projects, as time allows. Of course, some of these other projects have included songbooks featuring James Gordon and Eileen McGann, two of Canada’s prominent singer/songwriters. Another project with Katherine Wheatley is unfinished, but still progressing.

At long last, I am ready to preview the new interactive digital sheet music technology and catalog. I am initiating the preview by offering a free piece of sheet music- James Gordon’s ‘The Song My Paddle Sings’ (based on a poem by Pauline Johnson). James has generously allowed me to offer this selection as a free promo.

The technology for delivering the interactive digital sheet music is owned by Legato Media- I have obtained the right to use the technology to sell and deliver sheet music through their back-end technology and front-end viewer. The viewer currently runs on any web browser supporting Flash. Future editions will include a viewer that delivers to all Apple devices as well.

What can you do with the sheet music viewer? When you order or purchase sheet music from my online store (or any online stores that have integrated our catalog into their site) you are given a link to open the purchased sheet music in your web browser. The Legato viewer contains a set of controls that allow you to hear the music (currently only as piano-sampled notes), modify the playback speed, dynamically transpose the music into any key (for both the displayed music and music that is played back) and print a single copy of the purchased music. Future editions, or so I’m told, will support a somewhat less archaic/restrictive revenue model (where 1 purchase = 1 print).

In order to access your free copy, you have to register as a customer at www.berlenmusic.com. This isn’t just a marketing ploy- information for accessing the sheet music repository on the Legato server is partially stored in the customer data, so I can’t provide a link to non-registered customers. However, you can view a one-page preview of the music without registering. When you accessing the website, the promo sheet music is visible within the “Featured” window.

What are our next steps? I’ve got a bunch of songs from James Gordon’s catalog all queued up and ready to be integrated into our online store. I am initially offering leadsheet versions of songs, which will be priced around $3 each. I plan to add and upload choir arrangements and piano-vocal-guitar versions of some songs down the road. In addition, I’m also preparing and uploading a number of songs from Eileen McGann’s catalog. I’ve had conversations with a few other folks about publishing their material as well.

After that, I am actively looking to add to our catalog. As publisher, I want to help artists realize a revenue stream from sheet music renditions of their music. I also want to make the BerLen Music catalog the place where people will know to find sheet music by talented Canadian songwriters and instrumentalists. I look forward to having (or continuing) conversations with many of you over the coming year about turning your music into sheet music that can generate revenue and help provide a product that will appeal to your fans who want to learn more about your music and how to perform it.

Happy New Year to everybody and may the year of the Dragon bring peace, health, happiness and prosperity to all.

I’m a bit reluctant to write something when I’m feeling tired and raw and when I have to pick myself and do it all over again next week. This past weekend my partner Deb and I shared a table at the Millrace Festival. I had a table selling a few books last year. This year, Deb and I decided to share a table. Deb is a craft artisan, and her current chosen specialty is wheat weaving. We figured that by sharing the table to feature both our wares, we’d have a better chance at covering expenses and maybe doing a bit better. We did exactly that- we cleared our expenses and had a little extra for pain and suffering heatstroke. But let me tell you, Deb’s designs were what brought people to our table. I knew in advance I wouldn’t have the brand new Eileen McGann books ready to sell this week, so I was content to sell a few other titles. The seller for me this year was Debbie Carroll’s Book of Fingerplays (I’m too tired to type the entire title.)

So after suffering heat exhaustion and dragging myself into my day job today, Deb and I our gearing up to head up to the Celtic Festival in Goderich thursday night to set up another table for the weekend. Oh, and my shipment of Eileen McGann books arrive tomorrow. I would normally stamp and cheer at this point, and I am sure I will actually stamp and cheer once I see the actual books, but recovery mode is still in effect.

The highlight of the Festival was all the wonderful visits from friends, particularly on Saturday. My friend Dave and his wife Tamiko made the trek from Toronto to experience the charm that is Galt, after driving through the eyesore that is Hespeler Road. My buddy Jim Galway dropped by for some kind words. Saw Jakki and Wayne. Brenda and Ian dropped by to say hi. My good friend Ken came by early Sunday. Jeff Beckner made the trek carrying his bicycle on regional transit. Deb’s wheat weaving mentor, Daniel Kramer, paid a visit with his wife Laura. The teacher was impressed with the student.

Folks occasionally ask, “So… how’s it going?”, usually wondering in broad terms if the revenues surpass the expenses for that particular time. It’s very hard to take a narrow approach with an event like this. Even if we focus on the expenses and the fact that we specifically rented a vehicle for the weekend, all is not what it seems. We are not car owners, so the fact that we might be paying $120 for rental and fuel is offset by all the vehicle expenses we *don’t* pay to have a car sitting in our driveway for days at a time. But equally important is the networking done by chatting with folks who may want to create sheet music, or, in Deb’s case, may want to take a wheat weaving workshop. A lot of these conversations may never result in anything, but sometimes they do and can pay dividends in ways not anticipated at the time.

Next up: Goderich Celtic Festival

Here is a demo of an interactive digital sheet music preview for “Coke Oven Brook” by James Gordon:

Through the magic of facebook, I get to hear friends and colleagues recount their travels to exotic spots to attend workshops and conferences- Costa Rica, Phoenix, Honolulu, Orlando, etc. In my line(s) of work, I get to spend the next week in Hogtown (that’s Toronto to all my American friends.)  This weekend I will be manning a vendor’s table at FilKONtario located in a hotel by Toronto’s Pearson airport.  Google “filk” if you need the specifics. I’m hoping to find homes for some of the present and future songbooks I’ll be carrying.  Next week I’ll be attending and co-presenting a workshop at the Association of Ontario Health Centres’ 2-day program learning group. The learning group is located at Toronto’s Columbus Centre, located conveniently near Yorkdale and the Yorkdale Holiday Inn, where my family used to camp out when visiting our Toronto relatives during summer vacation when I was young.

So while I won’t walk away with a cache of laptop cases, 3D gizmos, memory sticks or whatever crap they give away at conferences these days,  I may hear some terrifically geeky lyrics to an Andrew Lloyd Webber tune.  Oh, and the FilK conference should be fun as well.

I went through a lot of self-help books in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  My family doctor and parents believed that the numerous anxiety-related symptoms I was experiencing were part genetic, part of being a teen and would probably dissipate over time (they never did think to ask if I was homesick, but that’s another story). My doctor referred me to a relaxation clinic in Toronto run by a very interesting older lady named Dorothy.  The clinic was free and was open to drop-in clients.  Classes were offered a couple of times a week and combined meditation techniques along with some presentation, workshop-style, usually led by Dorothy. The presentation would usually focus on some idea or concept that came from the plethora of self-help books that were available by loan or for sale from the clinic. And boy, were the 70’s chock full of self-help books!  Part of the problem is that I used to try to incorporate one concept or another into a high school paper or project, so the result would be presenting a paper combining biology and psycho-cybernetics to a puzzled grade 12 biology teacher.

One concept from one particular book stayed with me above all the others. This book, as several of these types of books tended to be, was a bit mean-spirited. I can’t recall the exact title without cheating and going to my bookshelf in the next room, but the book tried to debunk a lot of popular assumptions and thoughts that we all tend to carry around with us.  In an updated form, this would translate into the methodology and approach taken by the practitioners of cognitive behavioural therapy (or ‘cog’, as we self-help survivors like to call it). At the time, the ideas presented were a bit rebellious and challenging to the conventional way of thinking.

But here’s the concept that stuck with me- the grazing principle. The idea is to approach life like a cow seeking out sustenance. You graze where your instinct wanders, where the grass is fresh, without regard to order or a preconceived plan or agenda on where you should be going or how you should be prioritizing your time or resources.

My friend Ken coined a term a few years ago to describe the method and approach I’ve taken to building a concept, an approach to a business that I envisioned.  He coined it ‘lilyponding’.  You see, lilypond is an open source music notation software that Ken originally turned me on to, largely for selfish reasons. Ken thought I could help out his recording projects if I became proficient in using this software, sort of act as a musical secretary. But my interest and ideas started to take on a life of their own. I started experimenting with ideas of filling one or more niches in the independent music industry- providing a low-cost service to musicians needing music transcribed or notated, or actually providing musicians with a print-ready book containing their own sheet music that could be printed on-demand.  But other ideas grew from there, and my whole approach was to not operate under any preconceived notion or follow a predetermined direction, but rather go where my interest and instinct lay: the grazing principle.

I recently applied for a grant to help with a certain aspect of my business- I spent a fair bit of time and energy (and some money) putting together the application with some assistance. I also expended effort attempting to form partnerships and alliances that would help support the grant application and its chance of success. The most crippling aspect of this process is that I had a lot of energy invested and tied up in this proposal- I didn’t feel free to explore the other opportunities available or work on other aspects of my business to move in a new and interesting direction. So I reacted with mixed feelings to the news that our application for the grant didn’t succeed. Part disappointment, part defensiveness expressed as rage, but a lot of relief that I was free to start grazing the fields again.

So in conclusion, let me give you a litany of the self-help books I devoured in my teenage years:

• Psycho-Cybernetics- even Brian Wilson was photographed holding this one in the mid sixties.
• Born To Win- a little bit you, a little bit me, a lot of free to be you and me.
• Bioenenergetics- folks, this is a really painful type of body-oriented therapy. Not for the squeamish.
• Gestalt Therapy Verbatim- deep in the heart of Esalen in the late 60’s lay Fritz Perls. This book contains edited transcripts of some group sessions utilizing the technique developed with his wife called Gestalt Therapy. The book is highly entertaining and illuminating.
• Beyond Success and Failure- this is the book from where the Grazing Principle arose.
• I’m OK, You’re OK - Transactional Analysis! Dorothy leaned on this book quite a bit, it spawns well-known concepts like triangles and the parts of the ego: Parent, Adult and Child.
• The Magic of Believing- A kinder, gentler and more refined approach to Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s “Power of Positive Thinking”. Doesn’t work too well with obsessive-compulsives.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory line.  Don’t trip over the beanbag chair on your way out.

I’ve been having miscellaneous tune-ups recently: mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.  It has come to my attention that my reserve tank for handling crises or really annoying people and/or situations has been kind of shallow over the past bit. So I’ve been examining various ways to refuel, including talking with both friends and folks who get paid to listen.

One of the things I stumbled upon in my blathering is the fact that I feel really, really uncomfortable when someone points out to me that I have a lot of resources within to figure things out.  I noticed this not in the emotional, reactive way that usually precedes a sarcastic remark (”y’think?”) or mentally visualizing this person being stuck on a Bell/Sympatico helpdesk for the rest of their life.  It was more of an observation by an anthropologist or geologist examining a rock that had been lying in the same place for years but suddenly appeared in a different light.

A large part of this reaction comes from experiencing mental health issue in my teen years. Teens are a surly lot at the best of times so it is hard for even professionals to sometimes resist writing off antisocial behaviour as the equivalent of the teenage sniffles. So part of my reaction to hearing someone assert that clear thinking and good intentions can overcome one’s current mental state appears to me as a vast oversimplification of the process one goes through in sorting through a shifting array of choices and choosing the best path at the moment.

I wrote a song about this process years ago called Water Into Wine.  It is one of a few songs I’ve written that would convince the listener that I am Christian or have experienced a conversion.  But what the song really helped me do was capture that feeling or process of finding a path through emotional pain or unease. The song doesn’t really explore the metaphor in a clever or unique way, but simply compares the biblical image to the creative, non-linear process of converting distress into something that makes sense.

1st verse:
You tell me you got problems, to me you’re doing fine
You say you’re going down for the third time but I see you still holding on to the line
You’re waiting for a miracle, or some kind of sign
But I can see you turn water in, water into wine

This verse is a bit patronizing in retrospect, like how I imagine hearing simplistic reassurances always sounded to me.

You packed it in for the evening, you finally closed your weary eyes
Your helpless thoughts just drift away into a dreamworld of surprise
You wake up with an answer you never thought that you would find
You’re turning water in, water into wine

This whole first verse and refrain is a bit of a clichéd version of what it feels like to suddenly experience a transformation in thought without mentioning specifics like the 2nd verse does:

God made the world in seven days, ’til all the pieces fit
But when he woke up the next morning he said, “Who gives a shit?”
So he packed his bags and hitched a ride to the galaxy down the road
He wondered who would ever ease his troubled load

It feels like writing a song or solving a puzzle or having a memorable, memorable night with a good friend or companion. But to my mind it’s never enough to know that you’ve solved something once to allay the fear of being able to solve the same problem again. So I figured God might have felt the same way after doing his Creation trick.

God packed it in for the evening, he finally closed his weary eyes
He’s lying helpless, bathed in sweat, at night I hear his wounded cries
He wakes up with an answer for the world he left behind…

I guess I’m more interested in the nightmare preceding the vision than the aftermath or the actual vision. How does the act of creation work? I don’t often remember my dreams anymore but I never deny their power or clarity or ability to heal.

This morning, CBC Radio One featured a discussion on host Michael Enright’s show about elitism. The context was mostly political, focusing on how political parties in Canada and the U.S. issue charges of elitism against the other parties. Two panelists, David Olive and Claire Hoy, are Canadian journalists with respective liberal and conservative viewpoints; [...]

I was going to attempt to blog something about my musical roots a while back, but I never got around to finishing my thoughts. It’s very important for me to document this somehow, so I didn’t really want to write carelessly about the subject and not really capture the essence of why music is [...]

I feel like an idiot for not discovering this sooner. I also feel idiotic in wondering if I am the last person to figure this out, but in case I am not I thought I should share this with other folks who may find themselves on tour or on site somewhere selling their goods.
Here’s [...]