46th Annual Supplier Directory

How to Use the Directory

Amidst the palpable camaraderie and collective sense of optimism, however, one relevant question was not directly addressed: how is the print music industry responding to the digital revolution? This is a subject that weighs heavily on the minds of all print media professionals, with music publishers facing potential copyright infringement issues, and retailers up against the growing threat of being cut out of the print music loop by digital downloading, both legal and illegal.

As a representative of one small publisher put it, “There are some analysts who believe that as the economy picks up in the next three to five years, sheet music sales will be almost entirely digital downloads. That’s a heartbreaker because it means that there will be a whole lot of music stores who will be hurt in a big way because of this. Retailers and publishers need to work together to find the answer, especially in terms of the sales component.”

Yet, the answer may well already be out there. “Whether the end form results on a piece of paper or on a Kindle, it’s still all about content,” says David Jahnke of Hal Leonard. “Hal Leonard got into the digital download services very early in the game. At every step of our process of looking at a new initiative, we try to find ways to include the retailers. That’s how we came up with our Hal Leonard Digital Retailers, which is an in-store module that dealers can use to print out music from our catalogue.”

Jahnke continues, “At this point in time, is there a way for the retail community to capitalize on digital downloading? Not necessarily. However, if you take a look at the history of digital music downloads, 98 percent of those are pop songs, whereas 60-70 percent of our business is education. It’s band books and method books. It’s teaching people how to play, and that type of material isn’t going away any time soon. Will the printed materials be a thing of the past? Maybe in 40 or 50 years, but that content will be available in some form or another. As long as music stores are committed to lesson programs, committed to beginning and continuing education, there will always be ways for them to profit with print, or at least print content.”

Bryan Bradley, COO of Alfred Music Publishing, has a decidedly optimistic take on the impact that new technologies have on the retail print music market. “I think digital downloading is a great opportunity for a lot of reasons,” he says. “In the print music industry we tend to follow the audio industry. They’ve been through this and we have the opportunity of learning from how that industry has adapted. Apple and iTunes have proven that if you can provide the customers with what they want easily and for a fair price, they’re going to move away from illegal downloading. The beauty of it is that dealers should be able to capitalize, too. [Alfred] is a manufacturer, not a retailer, and we have built a back-end that any dealer can use to sell our product, digitally, to the end user. This can happen in their store or through their Web site.”

Are most retailers ready to move from hard copy to digital sales or embrace an in-store printing system? Bradley insists that the transition is both an imperative and quite doable feat. “I don’t care what industry you are in,” he reiterates, “times change and if you don’t adapt with the times, you are going to have problems. However, it has never been easier to make that transition because it is very inexpensive for dealers to hook up their system to incorporate digital print retail.”

In the lobby of the hotel hosting the convention, a placard outside of the elevators carried a quote from Oklahoma native Will Rogers that seemed to speak to this very issue: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”