MUSIC AND LEARNING MATERIALS AVAILABLE FROM BABS
This document contains the following main sections
Finding the song you want
Music Learning Materials
Pricing criteria
Taxes on imported goods
How to Order
Finding the song you want
There are a number of sources for barbershop music for men and the main ones are listed and detailed below. All are either available from BABS or BABS can provide assistance with getting these materials. Music sources and prices click here
1. BABS Millennium Music Publications
2. BABS Songbooks
3. BABS Unpublished Music
4. The Steve Hall Section (also unpublished)
5. The Barbershop Harmony Society Published Music
6. The Barbershop Harmony Society Published Songbooks
7. The Barbershop Harmony Society Unpublished Music (previously “The Old Songs Library”)
8. The Barbershop Harmony Society Music Premiere series
9. Miscellaneous sources (other organisations and individual arrangers)
1. BABS Millennium published music.
This is the programme run by David Strachan and the review board of John Wiggins, Neil Watkins, Paul Davies and Bob Walker. They review arrangements submitted by BABS members and make selections for eventual publication. Note that all clubs receive one complementary copy of every piece published by BABS. The current list can be found here
Prices
£ 1.00 per copy for BABS members - £ 1.50 per copy for non-BABS members (one copy is sent and you are given permission to make the agreed number of photocopies. A printed label is supplied for this purpose. )
2. BABS Published Songbooks
We currently have one songbook – “Songs for Special Occasions”. This contains 12 songs and is priced at £ 4.50 per copy including postage. A 10% discount is available for orders of 10 or more copies. (Non member’s price is £ 6.00). A set of 4 learning CD’s using the Myriad Artificial Voice system is now available for this songbook. All clubs have copies with permission to make copies for all members. Additional copies if needed can be obtained from Harmony Store for £ 15.00 (Non Members Price is £ 20.00)
3. BABS ‘unpublished’ music.
Music not used in the Millennium publication scheme and many other arrangements by BABS members are available for purchase. Note that a lot of this music is in hand written form and there are no guidelines as to the difficulty of the arrangement. A list can be found here
Prices
The cost of these needs to be calculated for each arrangement and will be a combination of
a) Copyright fees, b) Arrangers fee c) A per copy cost. To find out costs you will need to:
• Firstly decide which of the song(s) you are interested in.
• Check with George Badland to obtain the cost (if any) of the arrangers fee and make payment.
• Contact the owner of the copyright in the UK and ask for a licence to produce the appropriate number of copies. BABS does not have the resources to do this for you but you can find information in the “Guide to Copyright here”, also our specialists, George Badland, Rick Scott and Rod Adams may be able to assist you if you have problems.
Preview ‘unpublished’ music
BABS also offers a service for anyone wishing to review the unpublished music and the cost for this is £3.50 (£4.00 non members) for each arrangement up to a maximum of £10.00 (£12.00 non members) which is the charge for 5 arrangements. One copy will be provided and the price includes postage.
Each piece from the unpublished list will be supplied for review purposes only and will be accompanied by the following statement:
Review Copyright Notice (RCN)
“This music is strictly for review and is not to be copied or performed. If it is not needed, you are asked to return it to the BABS Music Publications Manager within 60 days. If you intend to keep, perform or disseminate it in any way, please inform the BABS Music Publications Manager who will advise how full copyright clearance can be obtained.”
4. Steve Hall Section (unpublished)
The late Steve Hall produced a large number of arrangements and they can be seen here. Costs and copyright issues for these are the same as the other unpublished arrangements from BABS.
5. BHS (Society) published music.
This is the music found in the BHS music catalogue.
The catalogue is available as a pdf file downloadable from the Society website. It contains both unpublished and published materials. Published songs ‘generally’ have a 4 digit product ID.
Newly published songs are added through the Music Premiere system and a list of those songs is available here and this will give the new publications added since March 2007.
For some of the music, the catalogue shows the degree of difficulty and whether learning CD’s are available.
Prices
If ordering published music from the Harmony Store where the copyright is NOT owned by the Society, the price will be £ 1.40 per copy for BABS members - £ 1.90 per copy for non-BABS members. The minimum number of copies is 4 but can be four different pieces. Note that everyone singing these in a group (quartet to full chorus) should have an original copy of the music purchased from BHS. If ordering published music where the copyright IS owned by the society (this is not very common but does apply to some of the titles and to all the music published in the Heritage of Harmony Songbook) then you can request permission to make copies from a master. The order and payment should be sent to Mike Lofthouse who will confirm the relevant numbers to George Badland. He will send a copy of the music which has a label on it indicating the number of copies paid for.
This service costs around £ 0.70 per copy for BABS members - £ 1.00 per copy for non-BABS members
Preview option
Note that there is also a preview option available for Society published music. If you wish to view one or more arrangements, they can be ‘borrowed’ from the display set that is maintained by George Badland. The cost per arrangement is £ 0.50 with up to 10 pieces for £ 3.50 (£ .80 and £ 5.00 respectively for non members) This music must be returned to George in 30 days.
6. The Barbershop Harmony Society Published Songbooks
There are a number of songbooks available such as the Heritage of Harmony Songbook; the Barberpole Cat series; various collations of well-known Barbershop songs through to Christmas Songs and a selection of Gospel arrangements. Prices vary so please check in the BABS price list.
7. The Barbershop Harmony Society Unpublished Music
(previously called “The Old Songs Library”)
This is the music found in the music catalogue from BHS (the catalogue is available as a pdf file downloadable from the web). Until early 2007, unpublished songs were prefixed with the letter U followed by 5 digits. Since the move to Nashville, BHS have installed a new operating system which does not distinguish between published and unpublished music. The ‘old’ music will maintain the code U but if ordering something with 6 digits it is as well to check with the BABS Harmony Store Manager to see if it is a published or unpublished song.
With the new rules on copyright that came into force in 2004, you can order through BABS one copy from the USA for preview (cost is up to £ 6.00 for one copy due to process charge and postage).
If the worldwide copyright has been secured by the Society then you can pay a per copy price (check with BABS) to copy the numbers you need and receive authorisation from the USA. If the WW copyright has NOT been obtained then you will have to seek permission and pay the copyright owner in the UK (or whatever country you will use the music in). BABS does not have the resources to do this for you but you can find information in the Guide to Copyright, also our specialists, George Badland, Rick Scott and Rod Adams may be able to assist you if you have problems.
Note that there are no guidelines as to the difficulty of the unpublished arrangements. Generally there are no teaching CD’s but teaching materials can be commissioned from BABS or BHS specialists.
Contacts:
George Badland email click here
Rod Adams email click here
Prices:
These vary considerably and you may also have to pay an arranger’s fee. You can find details on arranger’s fees on the BHS Web Site.
Orders can be placed through Harmony Store but it is best to check details with Mike Lofthouse first.
Music Premiere is the BHS system of publishing new and interesting works. From 2007 onwards there will be 2 issues of 6 songs per year. Each issue comes with a CD of the songs being performed - note this is NOT a teach tape. Learning CD's are however available for all songs in the Music Premiere system.
8. The Barbershop Harmony Society Music Premiere series
Music Premiere is the regular system for new published music from the Society.
Each issue of Music Premiere contains six songs plus a demo CD.
You can order individually ( issues from 2007 and 2008 are still available) and/or enter a subscription request with BABS Harmony Store.
It is recommended that all choruses should subscribe to this valuable resource for good arrangements for shows and contests.
Costs are as follows:
£ 12.00 each issue (£ 13.50 non members) delivered in the UK
9. Miscellaneous sources (other organisations and individual arrangers
There are many ‘private’ catalogues of Barbershop arrangements from such people as David Wright, Aaron Dale and other well known arrangers. Access to these is by the web and you can follow the guidelines they show for getting legal copies. There are also arrangements for women which may be of interest and it may be possible to transpose these into a mens key. LABBS, Harmony Inc. and Sweet Adelines have catalogues on their web sites.
Music Learning Materials
One of the great things about Barbershop is the availability of audio learning materials for many of our published songs.
Teach tapes are no longer available from BHS .They have now moved completely to learning CD’s
The costs are as follows:
Learning CD’s containing all 4 voice parts are available for many songs.
Learning CD single song with all four voice parts (as available)
members £ 12.00
non members £ 14.50
Multi-song (e.g. songbook) learning CD’s
members from £18.00
non members from £ 20.00
Learning CD’s are available for a high proportion of BHS published music.
For BABS Published music we do have one or two full voice part learning tracks available. For the rest we can supply a midi file style recording of each of the parts.
Where no learning materials exist (generally the case for unpublished music) you can commission full voice learning CD’s from a number of sources in BABS and from BHS. Several of these are to be found on the BABS website.
Finally, there exist a number of commercial computer programmes that can make artificial voice learning tracks. While not ideal, these are very accurate and the singer never runs out of breath. One popular programme from Myriad has been used to create a number of tracks for BABS (the Songs for ALL Occasions have been made in this way) and a number of members of BABS members have collaborated to create a list of songs that have been converted to artificial voiced learning tracks. The leader of this programme is Richard Thomas email here.
Pricing Criteria
Most of what is sold through the BABS Harmony Store comes from America. BABS has a special arrangement with BHS for purchasing goods and some of the prices paid to BABS are retained by BABS to run the store but more importantly to bring in much needed funds for Harmony Foundation. In addition the exchange rate fluctuation can play a big part in prices. Prices are monitored regularly by BABS to ensure that BABS members get as good a deal as possible from this arrangement.
Taxes on Imported Goods
Customers need to be aware that deliveries with a value of over £ 18.00 are sometimes subjected to a customs and excise charge of between 15% and 25%. Shipments from BHS are declared as ‘for educational purposes’ but charges may be levied in any case. If this happens, there may be an extra charge that has to be paid and you will be informed of this by the BABS Harmony Store manager.
How to Order music and learning materials
Orders can be placed with Mike Lofthouse by email (preferred method), post or telephone.
Enquiries can be made by email or telephone.
Contact details are as follows:
Address for mail
Mike Lofthouse
35 Casterbridge Road
Dorchester
Dorset
DT1 2AH
Email click here
Telephone 01305 265374
Methods of payment - the following can be used:
Cheque payable to BABS
Cheques should be sent to:
Mike Lofthouse
35 Casterbridge Road
Dorchester
DT1 2AH
Credit card or Debit card with details as follows
Surname
First line of your address
Post code
Telephone number or email address
Card number
Start date & Expiry date
The 3 digit security number (on reverse of card on signature strip)
Issue number or Start Date (debit card)
The entry on your card statement will be WP- BABS
Please note that payment is due immediately the order is placed |
