Music and books

Things have been a bit quiet on here for the last few days: I've been trying to get the music for Grimhilda! (the musical) sorted better than it has been. Up till a couple of days ago there was a dichotomy (I've been reading too much theology lately) between the printed copies I had of the vocal score (that's the one with just the piano accompaniment and all the singers' lines) and the versions that existed on Sibelius. In general the printed versions were out of date because I'd made innumerable changes (not least getting rid of the original 'overture' and replacing it with something that up till then had come later in the score) and because they also needed to have all the dialogue that affected where things were played written in.

I thought getting this done would be a piece of cake: I worked at it fairly solidly for two days and only got the first four scenes updated. Phew. Admittedly on Sunday morning I woke up thinking I needed to make yet another alteration to a secton in the second scene that's been bugging me for a while. However, whether the change I've now made is the right one is still not settled....

Actually I wasn't intending to write about the musical here this time, but about the sad news that the wonderful UK online bookshop, Book Depository, has been acquired by Amazon. At present Book Depository is great to shop at because it charges no postage anywhere in the world. (Well, 'anywhere' covers at least a 100 countries.) And still gives discounts on the original prices - not as big as Amazon's, but then Amazon compensates by charging a fearsome US$12 per book, and that usually wipes any discount off the map.

Supposedly, at this time, there won't be any changes to Book Depository's approach. Cynic that I am, I can't believe the good times will last....