What's the plan for this site?

[Bob]

Just being nosey.  I see it advertised as being a website of sheet music.  $ I see the sheet music side slowly developing more and more.  More music.  More recordings.  Is that the direction it will continue to grow?

[debussy symbolism]

Yes of course. Either that or have this site completely eliminated.

[Bob]

One or the other?  No inbetween?  Haha.

I've seen it mostly as a foum.  I was surprised to see it advertised for the sheet music.

[G.W.K]

It has to improve, even if it is slow. It'll attract more members, giving more money to the site and paying the bills and wages of those who work to improve this site! LOL

G.W.K

[concerto_love]

pianostreet, good job, muaahahahahahah..... 

[db05]

The site does need $$$. Maybe sell merchandise? Ads can help, but yeah, they'd make things slow.

[morningstar]

Ads would work well I think. Not sure what they would contain but that's what we're all here for! Brainstorming time!

[Bob]

There used to be Google ads.  Those were fun.  They were influenced by whatever words appeared most on the page.  So if... say Pianowolfi posted a lot, you might see ads for wolf traps or something.  (Bob wonders what ads might appear if his name appeared a lot on thread...) 

[lostinidlewonder]

A good way to support this forum might be for all of us to create a "Best of PianoStreet CD". I sure haven't seen an international collection of different from all over the world. It would be a first. I wonder what would be a good CD to create

[morningstar]

A good way to support this forum might be for all of us to create a "Best of PianoStreet CD". I sure haven't seen an international collection of different from all over the world. It would be a first. I wonder what would be a good CD to create

A compilation of a song or two from each member who wants to contribute! That would be awesome! I volunteer to make the CD and mail it to everyone lol. How do we start though?

[lostinidlewonder]

What to put on the CD and which members can contribute a good studio quality recording? I think 1 CD is too little I am sure something like 4 CDs would be more like it covering all genres of piano. Also each performer has to do a write up about their background etc, perhaps even a photo, perhaps even a write up on the background of composers and the "meaning" of pieces played? Then we need someone to put together the CD and design the cover. I don't think that step is very hard nowadays with the technology.

Where would we sell it? Who would sell it? Do you get it published by a record company? That is a little ambitious, but who knows? None of them have heard about an effort to bring together pianists from all over the world to play. Perhaps one theme of the CD would be performers from different countries playing music from their own country? But if you are looking at that avenue you really have to produce something very special. Although the 4 years of recording posting has had some very brilliant recordings better than some professional ones for sale now in my opinion.

From my experience selling CDs is very difficult (although I have never dedicated my time to work out the marketing of CDs). You have to sell CDs at your concert that you give, that way it is easier, people know the performer and would like to take a part of that home with them. I can sell CDs like candy at my concerts but otherwise it is very rare that someone would buy unless they know me from the music work. But when the public is faced with random people sometimes they just might not care. However this would cost nothing to anyone but time.

I remember being a part of a poetry website which every year brought out a book with everyones poems in it. Members could buy it and support the website. The same could apply for Pianostreet. Perhaps the biggest market is pianostreet itself! Would pianostreet members be interested to buy an end of year CD displaying their works or their friends? Perhaps then it would have to be in some kind of MP3 format to contain everyone. I'm just spewing out ideas here.

Certainly I know videos of piano playing is rare. There is certainly many times more audio recordings than video. It would be great to have  DVD of members playing piano. But that becomes very tricky because since producing as interesting video performance is many times harder than an audio, not only difficult to make it aesthetically pleasing but also the equipment demands are a lot greater.

[morningstar]

Probably a DVD rather than CD or a few CDs...have to check costs etc. None of that background stuff would be problem either, I can do all that no problem.
We could start in this site to get the production/cost covered then maybe advertise on Google etc? Then maybe just in supermarkets idk lol.
We could simply market it as a compilation, doesn't necessarily have to be something special from each country.
There are plenty of active members here to make it worthwhile to just do it here but would be nice to get some out to the wider community.
While audio wouldn't be a problem to work with at all, video would require more work on both ends and depending on how the video was recorded could require much more space (as much as 3dvds instead). Audio would be fine right?
I think we really need to get the wider pianostreet community in on this and maybe set up a poll? And we definitely need nils in too.

[Bob]

You could download the mp3's yourself and burn them onto a CD yourself.  That's not great for quality but it's not as much work.

[morningstar]

You could download the mp3's yourself and burn them onto a CD yourself.  That's not great for quality but it's not as much work.

Yeah while that would be easier the whole point is to get recordings done by pianostreet members. Besides I don't have a problem with the increased equipment requirement if no one else does. Going to put up a poll as soon as nils gets back to me.

[Bob]

I think Piano World sells CDs too.

[morningstar]

Well see no reason why we can't. We need nils' input though.

[nilsjohan]

Just being nosey.  I see it advertised as being a website of sheet music.  $ I see the sheet music side slowly developing more and more.  More music.  More recordings.  Is that the direction it will continue to grow?

Well, I can't reveal too many details about our future plans but some background may help you see the direction.

I know many of you regard this website as mainly a forum and that's how it started out. Back in 2001 while doing my second year of the Postgraduate Performance Diploma at Royal Academy of Music in London I saw many Internet forums for all kinds of subjects popping up and decided to make a serious effort to launch a forum for classical pianists and teachers.
Thanks to many great people contributing by posting it went on very well and since then it has just been a matter of keeping the forum on the right track.

Some years later I started planning for a project to offer downloadable sheet music and recordings for easy and intermediate piano repertoire.
It was initially a reaction on the fact that most piano related websites seemed to be over populated with low quality MIDI-files of popular piano pieces but it was very rare to find a real piano recording of such pieces most piano pupils work on, such as minuets, sonatinas etc.
The project Piano Street was born and the first version was launched in 2005 containing free sheet music for a few hundred piano pieces.

Shortly after this we merged the two sites and started to offer the paid Gold membership in order to financially support the development of both the forum and the other services.

Today, thanks to all our Gold members, this website is run as a small but healthy business and we have increasing opportunities to continue developing services for pianists, piano teachers and piano students.

So, to answer your question if more recordings and sheet music is the direction, yes but that's not all...

Ads would work well I think. Not sure what they would contain but that's what we're all here for! Brainstorming time!

Ads are distracting and satisfied Gold members is our main concern so even though ads would mean instant cash we try to avoid it as far as possible.

A good way to support this forum might be for all of us to create a "Best of PianoStreet CD". I sure haven't seen an international collection of different from all over the world. It would be a first. I wonder what would be a good CD to create

It's a very nice idea. Certainly something we can plan for doing in one way or another.
We will soon add a rating system to the Audition Room in order to sort out the really good recordings posted there. When this is in place we could maybe use these ratings to select recordings for an inofficial CD compilation.
Alternatively, your ideas about a commercial CD with music from our members' own countries is very interesting but also a much larger project.

However, it might be difficult make any of these projects profitable so in order to financially support the forum, the best way is still by becoming a Gold member.

[morningstar]

Ads are distracting and satisfied Gold members is our main concern so even though ads would mean instant cash we try to avoid it as far as possible.

OK so not then.

It's a very nice idea. Certainly something we can plan for doing in one way or another.
We will soon add a rating system to the Audition Room in order to sort out the really good recordings posted there. When this is in place we could maybe use these ratings to select recordings for an inofficial CD compilation.
Alternatively, your ideas about a commercial CD with music from our members' own countries is very interesting but also a much larger project.

However, it might be difficult make any of these projects profitable so in order to financially support the forum, the best way is still by becoming a Gold member.

OK so it may not be very profitable but does it have to be solely for profit? Besides, showcasing what this site has to offer could attract more gold members to our ranks, therefore increasing the profits from gold member subscriptions. A rating system would be handy though and could perform a few functions apart from helping a compilation idea.

[morningstar]

OK just realised that's wrong since I am not a gold member myself but...you get the idea.

[G.W.K]

Nils, what I keep on mentioning (and still fail to get a reply from you) is a spellchecker. I think lots of members would benefit from this and those who don't speak English as a first language, can correct their mistakes before posting, therefore others will be able to understand them easier.

Please, can we get one? LOL

G.W.K

[retrouvailles]

There isn't a need for Nils to spend the time coding that into the site when Firefox can spellcheck for you.

[G.W.K]

There isn't a need for Nils to spend the time coding that into the site when Firefox can spellcheck for you.

Not everyone can use, or uses, Firefox.

And who says Nils "codes" anything? This site is from Simple Machine Forums...a standard template, if you will, that has been altered by Nils and others.

I'm sure they provide a spellchecker. Nils, can you shed some light on this?

G.W.K

[morningstar]

Not everyone can use, or uses, Firefox.

And who says Nils "codes" anything? This site is from Simple Machine Forums...a standard template, if you will, that has been altered by Nils and others.

I'm sure they provide a spellchecker. Nils, can you shed some light on this?

G.W.K

Well if you're not using Firefox, what are you using? If you say internet explorer...*smacks gwk round head*

[G.W.K]

It's G.W.K, not g.w.k, and yes, I use Internet Explorer.

G.W.K

[retrouvailles]

I use Internet Explorer

Fail.

[G.W.K]

Fail.

*SIGHS*

If you don't like what I say, don't respond to what I say, OK?

Thank you,

G.W.K

[retrouvailles]

No, it's not that I didn't like what you said, I am just expressing my opinion over your using IE. And this is the internet. Speech is freer here than anywhere else.

[morningstar]

Definite fail. Not you, IE.