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Frequently Asked Question

About Us

Hop Vine Music is a small Internet based publishing venture based near Malvern in Worcestershire, England. We specialise in music for wind ensemble, although not exclusively, including first editions and reprints of unusual wind music from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The company was founded in 2005 by Hugh and Ian Field-Richards. Hugh retired in 2005 as a computer scientist based in Malvern where he has been living for over 40 years. He is an amateur bassoonist, playing since the age of 15. In Malvern he played with the Chandos Symphony Orchestra until a riding injury in 2019 forced him to give up (orchestra, not playing). He also played in the wind quintet Pentatonic, for whom the Elgar quintets were arranged. He was also a member of Crooks Anonymous, the Worcestershire based bassoon quartet which no longer performs. Much of Crooks music has been published and can be purchased from Camden Music.

Ian is a professional Graphic Designer with more than 20 years experience. He works in a number of different media, primarily web and print design, but also works in magazine design, bureau work, newspapers, animation, album artwork and application UI design. He has also had his work featured with DAZ3D and Ballistic Publishing. He has published a book of his artwork: "HEARTWORK — The Art of Ian Field-Richards" ISBN: 1-4116-7689-0.

Quicksilver Translate Logo

Also thanks to Quicksilver Translate for help with the German translations in the music.


Grade markings

We have elected to use the same grade/skill markings that are used by June Emerson.

Sources

Where possible we work from copies of original manuscripts which have been obtained through libraries and are published with their permission. Sometimes we acquire the music from other sources but are unable to trace the original library from where the manuscript originated. We make every effort to give credit but, unfortunately, this is not always possible. Hop Vine Music always supplies complimentary copies to the holder of the source manuscripts for their catalogue; we would be more than happy to do so, and give credit for the source, for any of our editions whose origin is unknown if the holder contacts us. We obviously respect copyright on music and only publish items that are now out of copyright and are in the public domain, or those for which we own the copyright.

Errors in the music

By virtue of its complexity it is inevitable that printed music contains mistakes. When you consider that even a short piece can have many thousands of elements (notes, dynamics etc), it is easy to see why. Many of these errors are of minimal importance (dynamics too close to beams etc.) but some are rather more serious (wrong notes, wrong transpositions etc.) and can be difficult for the player to correct without the original music.

We make every effort to issue correct, error-free parts by intensive checking. Early publication is not advisable as there are always mistakes. Where possible we play from the parts to make sure that each edition is correct. We issue errata for each edition, where required, which may, to some people, seem like an admission of failure. However, consider this: how many times have you seen a publisher issue errata? And how many times have you played from established orchestral parts that still, after probably several decades of use, not had the parts corrected or an errata within the collected parts? We would like to feel that our small mea culpa may encourage other publishers to do the same.

Ordering

Since the distribution of our wind music editions is handled by June Emerson Wind Music (www.juneemerson.co.uk), who are our sole distributors for these editons, please use their site. Each edition on this site will have a link to the appropriate page on the June Emerson site.

Note that we will continue to supply our orchestral hire editions and choral works through this site using PayPal.

If you are ordering from North America please note that TrevCo-Varner Music (www.trevcomusic.com) now takes all our music for double wind. They also accept payments by Visa, MC, American Express, and Discover.

If you are ordering from Germany try Accolade (www.accolade.de) or Zerluth (www.zerluth.de). There is also Harrassowitz (www.harrassowitz.de) who are distributors for university and academic libraries only.

If you have any problems with any part of the ordering process, please contact us by Email.

Can I see/hear examples of the Editions?

Each edition has a few pages available as a PDF file and you can listen to a short excerpt as an MP3 file. The audio (either live or generated by NotePerformer) can be accessed by clicking the speaker icon:

PDF sample pages are accessed via:

On appropriate editions I have also produced a rehearsal sound file (just piano etc) which should aid personal practice. Access by clicking the "-1" icon:

We also provide a CD with the rehearsal piano on those editions.

What does "in prep." mean?

When a catalogue item is near release we include it in the catalogue to give customers an early indication of availability. The reasons for delays in thee final release are usually getting permission for using the original manuscripts from the library or organisation that holds them. Normally this does not take long but sometimes it can be a time-consuming process. This only applies to some of our catalogue and those that do not require permissions are usually issued within a few weeks of "in prep." status.

Technical Trivia

poweredByPaloose

For those who are interested this site was built on a system called Paloose, which is a subset of the Cocoon system, but written in PHP5 rather than Java.

The entire catalogue is held as an XML database and Paloose provides the pipelined translation of this data. I would have greatly preferred to have used Cocoon but the problem is finding a hosting service to provide Tomcat/Cocoon at a reasonable cost.


Copyright 2005 – 2022 Hop Vine Music. All Rights Reserved.