Building SingScore – the Back Story

“How did SingScore come about?” I hear you ask, leaning forward with interest and peering at this screen. A revelation struck me last year when I suddenly realised that I was in the midst of what could only be described as an epicentre of quality songs by Australian composers. More-over, I actually knew quite a few of them. Or I could stalk them relatively easily. Working for 14 years as soprano with the Song Company (sorry, I needed to mention that to gain credibility) and the Sydney Children’s Choir (again, if I don’t, you won’t take me seriously) I realised that some of these works were difficult to obtain. A customer would need to; (a) know that the song exists/was good (b) find out how to contact the composer (c) request to view the scores, negotiate a price, settle on a licence and so on.

Some classroom teachers might not read music so well (not you, reader, you have great sight-reading skills), so they may not be confident purchasing music without hearing it first even if they did get to view a score. Does viewing the first page of a score help you to know the range and complexity of the middle and end bit? (No, by the way, it doesn’t. Usually the first page is mostly piano introduction with a gentle mid-to-low alto entry on bar 13.) Also, I wondered; Is this music reaching the wider Australian singing network? Now that we all have broadband… once we all get broadband… regardless of broadband…we are connected by some sort of internet at least. And usually we can work out how to link our computers to the printer.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not pointing the long, piano-playing finger. My own faffing about selling my compositions was a case in point. Definitely time to get organised and put together a team of willing composers who want to spread the word and promote great Australian songs for choirs and schools! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…