I now deliberately avoid ABRSM music when they are published in book, rather than just stapled in the middle.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to get them to lay flat on the music stand .... Grrrrr.

The only solution seems to be to use photocopies of the music.

Henle publications are perfect in this respect (as well as being very good in general) so why can't ABRSM get its act together?

Or am I the only person who feels this way?

I'm a massive fan of Henle hardbacks. Absolutely love them My 220 page Beethoven piano works book sits flat on any page without any hassle.

ABRSM binding is awful, you'll be playing something then the page will flip over of its own accord, causing much embarassment!!! I think the solution is to cut a mm off the spine and ring bind them.

It is not just ABRSM who commits this crime.

The only way we have of fighting back against the modern practise of offering bindings that do not allow an open piece of music to remain open on the music stand is this: do not buy it, and tell the retailer why not.

When in a music shop, looking for a specific piece/book and we find it, do this: open it out and work out whether it will stay open on the stand. If not, take it to the shop owner and explain that you wanted the music but will not buy it because the inability of the score to remain open renders it unusable.

When buying over the phone, ask the seller if the book will remain open on a piano stand. State in no uncertain terms that you will return the book and demand a full refund if the seller claims that it will, yet subsequent experience shows that it will not.

One thing the French seem to have got right is the binding on their music books. My daughter's French books have the pages inside ring bound but a non ring-bound cover (not sure how to explain this - the book looks like any music book until you open it). The result is a book that stays open perfectly on the music stand and whose cover doesn't star falling off after being carried around a lot.

If it's only a two page piece (and most of mine are shorter than that as I'm a beginner) I use these pegs http://www.lakeland.co.uk/mega-pegs/F/keyw...gs/product/8827 to hold the pages flat.

Well, I've sent an e-mail to ABRSM complaining about their bindings. (Much good that will do.)

You would think that an organisation such as ABRSM would get such a basic thing right. Do none of their staff ever use their own publications?

[Rant over ... again!]

I wholly agree and you did well to write to them. I find so many other publivcations are so easy to keep open at any page and don't see why ABRSM aren't. It may sound unimportant but it does annoy one to be unable to keep music books open lying flat in the music stand, dopesn't it?

omg yes that is so annoying, it is really irritating especially when playing piano, it falls straight onto your hands.

I think it's a crime for ANY music publisher to get the binding wrong, I mean....hello????????? do you actually know what product you are selling and what's it for????
and this is not just for piano, we ALL need the music to stay open on a stand!!!
these people should know better that we don't (not usually) play our instrument whilst tucked up in bed under our duvet
(although my teacher told me he used to sleep with his violin next to him and wake up in the middle of the night, pick it up and play arpeggios at random!!! )

That reminds me:-

Many years ago I was interested in the lute and bought a facsimile copy of Thomas Mace's "Musick's Monument" (published 1676). It contains the following memorable passage:

....how to shelter your lute in worst weathers (which is moist) you shall do well, ever when you lay it by in the day-time, to put it into a Bed, that is constantly used, between rug and the blanket; but never to be expected, that no person be so inconsiderate as to tumble down upon the bed whilst the lute is there; for I have known several good lutes spoiled with such a trick.

Thank you for that piece of utterly delightful prose!!

I am much cheered and henceforth will endeavour to most carefully inspect any bed in which might lay an unsuspecting lute - lest I should be deemed an inconsiderate person.

We shall all inspect any beds whereupon we lie lest there should be any hidden instruments hidden from view which might spring unpleasant surprises ...

I assume he lived alone. If not he probably soon did

Just as well it wasn't a double-bass!

or a piano...

I am going to use this thread to rant about a related problem. For my Grade 6 flute examination, I bought the ABRSM recommended version of the Vivaldi Flute Concert No 5 in order to play the first movement. After the exam I decided to learn the whole piece. The last movement occupies two pages and I couldn't believe it when I found a page turn was needed to get to the second page. This page is a left-hand page and the right hand page facing it is completely blank. Being a self-contained insert, it is of the same paper weight as the rest of the flute music. There are no bars rest around the page turn, and no bars where you can continue fingering with the left hand while making the turn. Short of memorising the whole of the first or last page of this movement, it is impossible to play.

I wrote to the publishers (Schott) pointing out that with a bit more careful planning, and using no more pieces of paper, they could have avoided this problem, but now I was going to have to violate their copyright restrictions and copy the last page to make it playable for me. I got no reply.

I was quite irritated that Alfred had cut corners with a score I had by printing the last page on the glossy part of inside the back cover... Looks horrible especially when light reflects off of it - that was the last time I ordered something off the internet when I wasn't sure exactly what it was like.

My music teacher dislikes Schott publications in general, finding them to have silly page turns. One piece we have played together (me melody, him accompanying), we found that he had to turn over and then two bars later we stopped while I turned over!
Plenty of the things we play seem to at least try to co-ordinate the turns, or put them in restful places...or, as has been pointed out, put the blank pages other than at the end to facilitate!

Hope you're not planning on playing the Vivaldi concerto in the Grade 7 yellow book then. I haven't let anyone play it so far because you either need two stands or a two page cardboard extension.

We had a really horrible page turn in band at school. There were four bars rest, then four bars of us playing. Then there was a page turn, another four bars, and then a repeat sign! We had to turn the same page 3 times each time we played the piece, even though the four bars after the rest could probably have been printed on the following page so that the turn was in a rest and not a repeat!

On the other hand, one of my grade 8 pieces was the first movement of a sonata, and in the edition I used, I noticed that the third movement was printed before the second, and this was so that the third, which was only two pages, could fit on a double page spread so there wasn't a page turn!

Re: Books that won't lie flat.

Some of my professsional pianist friends have a drastic solution.

They slice out the pages they need with a crafte knife, put them in those plastic sleeves that marketing companies use - the sort that take a wire spiral for binding - not the loose leaf type then bind them into an album with one of those fancy desk-top devices that threads the wire for you.

Other advantages are easier page turns, the printed pages don't get grubby and frayed, and they are not carrying the scores of all the other pieces from an album that they are never going to play.


Seeing as some of their (piano) publications have the most absurd fingerings imaginable, and have often meddled with the composer's phrasings it is hardly surprising that they don't care about the bindings

I have an AB book of Haydn sonatas[1] and there is something of a haitus on every page turn as you have to take the book down rebreak the spine on the new page and then thump it every few bars to try and stop the page turning back again.


[1] I don't exactly play what's written but can achieve a vaguely musical vague approximation. I think I picked them up at some second hand place or other. Otherwise I'm more likely to go for out of copyright web scans of music that I can print out and shove in ring binders.

No doubt it will come one day, and my teacher has a very good cardboard extension all ready, made from Corn Flakes boxes .

To my great (and very pleasant) surprise I have had a reply from the ABRSM Production Manager concerning my complaint about the ABRSM bindings. He also gave his permission for me to post his response on this forum:



In a second e-mail, following a suggestion I made, he said they would try to find a way of letting people know when a binding is changed (i.e. manufactured using the 'cold set glue' method). This notification would have to be delayed somewhat, to allow the existing stocks of the old bindings to be cleared. Ideally, IMO, the notification would be via their website/online shop.

As I said, I am very pleasantly surprised and also impressed that the Production Manager of ABRSM devoted time and effort to reply to my complaint. I am also impressed by the efforts they are making to improve the bindings.

Brilliant!

Dear John451,

Well done on your efforts. The current binding does leave a lot to be desired. As someone has posted above paper clipping the pages doesn't work if the piece is longer than 2 pages and ends with a piece of the music being ripped.

Fingers crossed that new improved binding arrives soon.

Ordinary clothes pegs work perfectly well: I used green ones in my grade 8 piano, much to the amusement of the examiner (and my teacher).


I could be wrong but I definitely thought that this specific use of a photocopy is explicitly NOT a breach of copyright. This may be why you got no reply. Or maybe not!

Are they also making efforts to stop messing about with the composer's text?

Because I just discovered yesterday that my 1960 ABRSM edition of Chopin's Nocturnes has some incorrect slurs and dynamics - and they completely destroy Chopin's intended effects (and that is on top of Mr. Fielden's very rude and condescending assessments of some of the musical worth of some of the Nocturnes in his introduction).

This is the latest in a long list of disappointments with ABRSM editions - starting with the old Beethoven editions [I have not seen the new one, so it is possible that it is excellent]

p.s. I still like their edition of Bach's 48.

The Code of Fair Practice by the MPA states:


But this only applies to the publishers who are signed up to it. Schott, in this case, are signed up, so it is allowed.

A full version of the code (for those who want a nap) and the publishers who agree to it can be found here

Thanks Robodoc and Maizie for that clarification. I guess I won't be prosecuted now .

It doesn't alter the fact that due to bad planning, Schott have made me use my paper and ink when at no cost to themselves they could have printed it so much better. Not fit for purpose, anyone?

I was waiting for you to post that!

Maybe they need to be more transparent with what's editorial (many other editions use footnotes and markers, dotted lines for slurs etc).

I like my Henle editions, I can make my own mind up about what I think I should play

But then you are a henle addict. But i do agree that in some abrsm editions are a bit obscure, at least the ancient edition of mozart sonata k330 i have is a bit udecided whether to represent ornament as they would be played or otherwise.

I don't want transparency. They should just get rid of this idea that they know better than the composer where the slurs, dynamic marks, and changes of pedal should be. It is not all bad. The ABRSM edition of Mozart's sonatas is rather good, as is their edition of Bach's WTC.

Just think. If we had electronic scores at the touch of a button we could switch between Urtext and enhanced scores with performance suggestions, we could bring up half a dozen different suggested fingerings, page turns would cease to be a problem ...

A couple of years ago I went to see a live performance of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and the live on-stage orchestra were playing from individual per desk LCD screens. I think they were each making page turns with a foot switch, and they could obviously see clearly in the gloom that was often on the stage. It occurred to me at the time that one day this might be the way we would play music, in the same way that you often see on the London Underground people watching films and TV programmes on their mobile phones.