Yesterday, I
wrote about the different representations I want to have available in the BDL.
Perhaps a clearer statement of the BDL's scope is that everything of relevance
to Bach should be either be directly contained by the BDL or would referable
from the BDL. There is no way a BDL can subsume all the wonderful resources
that others are developing about Bach. However, it would be great if the BDL
could know about these other resouces and "interoperate" with them
so that it would be easy for someone to make the best use of all these materials
together.

Let me get concrete by giving examples about how I currently interact Bach
related materials vs how I'd like to do so. As a Bach fanatic, I have slowly
been working through the 153 CDs of the magnificent Bach
2000 collection. One question that I've been pondering is how to have any
single part of the Bach oeuvre quickly available to me. In my current setup,
I would have to rummage through my 200-CD case to find the exact CD (providing
I know the BWV numbering of the piece) and stick it into my computer or CD player.
This is not a great hassle if I am listening and studying a specific work; however,
if I want to compare two or more parts of Bach's music, then shifting between
CDs is a cumbersome and ultimately prohibitive process. (I find it interesting
that I didn't get into ripping my CDs into mp3s until I gave a talk about Bach
in which I wanted to jump between different pieces of music. Before that, I
though to myself, "hey, the kids can have their mp3 but I like carrying
around CDs, with their cover art and liner notes, much like I suspected that
my elders liked their LPs even if CDs were more convenient."

Now, I'm trying to figure out a way to rip my entire Bach 2000 collection and
organize the mp3s for optimal access. Now it is possible to forget about ripping
CDs and buy a 200+ CD changer in which I can load all the CDs -- but such a
setup is not portable. What if I want to have all-of-Bach-all-the-time, while
walking to work or biking at the gym? Hence, I've been eyeing an iPod
or a Nomad Jukebox
Zen to hold the digitized Bach 2000. I've put off doing so because I've
been wondering whether I really need another gadget -- and even if I got one
whether it is really the answer to my problems.

OK, let's say that the set (and all the other CDs that I have) digitized and
organized for quick access -- so what then? Speaking as a Bach amateur -- and
not as a Bach scholar -- I'm very much in a naive-stumble-along-teach-myself
mode when it comes to Bach. For example, when I come across a discussion of
parody (in the sense of "the retexting of a vocal composition, and more
generally the production of a new vocal work based on the music of another piece"
(Malcolm Boyd et al. J.
S. Bach, p. 356)), then I'd like to listen to examples of parody. "The
concept [of parody] is important in Bach studies because so much of the composer's
vocal music appears in more than one guise." As a computer and Bach geek,
I'd be even more thrilled if the lists of parodies could come in an XML format
that I could quickly convert into a playlist.

Once I am able to make those digital connections for myself, I would naturally
like to share them with others. However, within current copyright constraints,
I'd be hard-pressed to do so in the way that I would like to (and the way the
technology makes natural.) For instance, last night, I wanted to enable my readers
to listen to what was moving me that time (and over the last couple of weeks):
BWV 881a, the Prelude No. 12
in F minor in The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. Ideally, I would be able point
or embed the particular recording to which I've been listening (by Jeno
Jando) so that my readers could experience it for themselves. The best I
can do (which is great) is to point to Bach scholar Yo
Tomita's midi rendition of prelude, which he generously makes available
on his own website. It is fortuitous that, in this case, I can reference specific
pieces of audio to support my blogging; the bulk of the Bach works will have
no audio representation available on the Web.

What I hope for in the BDL is access to at least one audio rendition of every
Bach piece. On this point, I've said to friends that if I were wealthy, I'd
be interested in approaching Teldec to buy the right to make the Bach 2000 collection
available on the Web. Assuming that we could reach a deal, how much might it
cost? My first naive thought was to say that I would buy the recordings outright
by paying the total estimate revenue from the set. However, when I came across
the statement
that 3800 complete sets were sol within the first month of the set's release
, I thought, "hmm...4000 sets x$1000/set = $4 million is too steep of a
price to pay".

Instead of paying Teldec, I wonder whether there is a way to convince Teldec
to host the CDs online as a way of making more money on the set than it would
by selling the music in its current form. Is there a subscription model that
hits different segments of the market? Public access for a low-quality or short
sample of works? (low quality might put people off by giving them the wrong
impression of the quality of the source recordings. On the other hand, it doesn't
have to be extraordinarily high audio fidelity for certain purposes.) A monthly/annual
subscription fee for the Bach die-hards who would fork over $X (where X is say,
around $10-$30/month) so that they can have the convenience of the set without
having to digitize it themselves. Any revenue model for selling parts of CDs
or individual tracks at the $1/track level as Apple has been doing in its music
store? Institutional subscriptions for universities that want to teach Bach
and incorporate actual audio into the instruction? (I'm sure others have looked
deeply into this issue -- I might learn more about it later.)

Part II is over -- I got to get out to get some sun and fun. In future
postings on the BDL, I plan to describe how I'd like to relate musical scores
and bibliographic information to the Bach oeuvre.