Hi,

Seeing as my Clavinova has a music rest with no means of holding open the pages I was wondering if anyone has had the spines cut off their music books and rebound with a ring or spiral binding. As it is I have to bend the pages back so they don't spring closed.......I do have a few music books that are ring-bound and are a delight as they just sit there open at 180 degrees. Looking at the gutter size I'm sure it could be done.

Has anyone done this? What kind of cost is involved? If anyone has used a company that can do this please send me their details.

Many thanks,

Mike.

Don't get me started on those blasted won't-stay-open books. These days, I take a two-pronged approach:

1. I buy cloth-bound music.
2. If cloth cover is unavailable, I ask the supplier whether the available copy will stay open on the stand. When the answer is, "No" (and they know better that to obfuscate with me over this) I do not buy it.

An alternative to rebinding is to copy the music and store it in a folder - might be cheaper. I know this is not what you were asking, but it is an idea. I do this when accompaniments I have to play come in those closed-only books.

I have literally ripped all the pages out of a book and then stuck them in a file in plastic thingies.
(One needs to have anger issues to achieve this )

A slightly less drastic approach is to peg the book on either side to the music rest using clothes pegs and if you have more than 2 sides of music, enlist the help of photocopies, a large piece of cardboard and some blutak as well. If you have more than about 4 pages, then you will need to do some unpegging to turn a page at some point.

You can also make books less springy by going through them and pressing them down flat every few pages. I managed to get one of my inch-thick springy beethoven sonatas books to stay open without pegs or prongs this way.

Grrrr......it's not just me then .

You know what!? I'm going to make a jig to clamp and hold the book while I cut the spine off and then I'm going to ringbind it (I'm lucky there as I bought my niece one for Christmas).

Thanks for the replies all - the trouble is I have been brought up to respect books so I cringe even when I'm folding pages backwards to try and make the damned thing stay open.

He who dares has books that open at 180 degrees.

Many thanks,

Mike.

PS: Sarah - I would use pegs but the rest on the Clavinova is only about 6" tall so I doubt it would work. You can't get away from how good it feels to open a ring-bound book and see it lie completely flat!

Piano - I must say, I like to copy my music and store it as a PDF. Partly as I like to import it to Sibelius via Photoscore. But in book form it's all but impossible to get a nice scan, Grrrrr. Where's my stanley knife???

My digital piano's rest is about the same height. You can peg the pages from the sides, sort of diagonally (it's a bit difficult to imagine, so I can take a picture if you can't quite picture it.) or alternatively you can put a tall piece of thick cardboard behind the book to peg them to. There is really no need to cut up your books.



That book is about as bad as springy books will come. It is quite happy with just two pegs (they don't necessarily have to both be pegged to the rest either. But if you want to be on the safe side, you can use the cardboard:



Please, please, please don't cut up your books!

I'll try it but we only have modern fangled plastic pegs which will no doubt slip right orf.

I have a keen eye....so believe me if my books do have an encounter with a Stanley they'll be perfick.....otherwise I won't attempt it. I'll sleep on it, but something has to be done! Please don't have images in your mind of Homer in the basement of the Simpson household trying his hand at DIY .

Thanks,

Mike.

Crumbs....how sweet. Thanks for the pics.

It's a great solution Sarah.....but not ideal. I'll have a do over the next few days - I'll upload a pic and tell me what you think. I'm no yokel...oink oink.

If you like the results - I'll do yours gratis .

Regards,

Mike.

Pegs are no damn use anyway, if you are in the middle of accompanying a 6 page show song in the middle of a class of 15 singers, all of whom have these blasted won't-stay-open-whatever-you-do books.

Just go for the Stanley knife, OK, and save yourself a lot of angst. Saves breaking the copier top through the force you have to use leaning on it to get the wretched book to stay open long enough for the page to copy decently.

It will be interesting to see how much more bile and spleen gets vented here. Publishers have a lot to answer for.

Yes yes yes for the very same reasons described above my other half bought a spiral binding machine. At the time I thought it a bit pricy, but it has been worth it. He rips the binding off annoying books and re-does them with the spiral binding. Its used for everything from A level notes to sprial binding index card revision notes.

Go for it. He bought his in the Post Office.

Another approach is to scour second hand shops and car boot sales for old cloth-bound editions, then go through them, and with modern won't-stay-open Urtext, carefully editing out all the slurs and dots and extra dynamics that the misguided Victorian editors added to the score.

I had the opposite problem, almost. My Urtext Bach Organ volumes which I had owned since being at school, were really starting to fall to bits. 25 years of a soft bound book in various organ cases and it was starting to show. I took mine to a professional bookbinder (the sort that does dissertations etc) near us in Poole. He did a really excellent job. I paid about £20-25 per volume (they are very thick), but as that was the same price as a new volume, and these will do for longer, I thought it was money worth spending.

Haven't regretted it at all, but I don't know how effective it would be on a Clavinova stand.

Where abouts in the country are you?

In London, there are plently of print rooms that would bind things for you at just a few pounds cost. Might be worth it to pay £3 or rather than go to all the hassle yourself.

Spiral binding is all very well but over time you tend to lose pages from front and back as the pages wear and the holes disappear.

Hi,

I am in sunny Lancashire - but if you know of a chap who can do the deed near you please send me his details as I can send a box of music books via DHL for £8, and arrange collection at the same price.

Many thanks,

Mike.

Hi....scrub that req. thanks. I had a do today and the results are spot on. Makes it much easier to read with the entire pages lying flat (where even if you persuade a book to stay open, it still resembles a seagull).

Many thanks!

One of our worst offenders happens to be an ABRSM edition of Haydn sonatas.... .
A word of caution: if filing space for you is limited, then the various ring and comb options are going to leave you with rather bulky stuff to file when stowing your music. That's the reason Haydn just gets his back broken on the rare occasions when I'll try to play the piano - reconstituting the music would make it take up too much space .

It's probably not good for the books but I fold them back the other way and back again so they stay flat. I have clips on my clavinova but there are none on my teacher's piano - must admit it's quite annoying when you're looking at the page and it starts flipping over all of its own accord

Don't get me started about those..................