After my dad’s business, PEL Music Publishing, was passed on to me last year, there were some questions whether the band would play on, so to speak.
The answer is yes. There is too much at stake here, as far as wonderful Wisconsin grown musical creations, to just let it all fade away. The original compositions of Clare Hounsell, John Jay Hilfiger, and Byron DeFries, and the thoughtful arrangements done by Paul Luhring (my dad) and Jon Meyer at Lawrence University, to name only a few, need to be perpetuated and promoted.
I watched my dad run PEL Music for almost 30 years, and it seemed so easy for him. Sad to say, I am not even half the musician he was, and I do not have a teacher’s pension to live on while running his business. My dad was not into music publishing for the money. He was into it for his love of music and his love of teaching it. If, for some reason, he was told that he could no longer sell sheet music, but he was free to give it away, he would have said “OK” and would have continued on without a second thought.
Unlike my dad, I have to earn a living while doing this along with running my other business, 3W Media. I had no idea how much time it actually takes to print the piano score, the solo instrument part, and the cover, put the piece in the mail and send out a bill. I do charge for postage, but there are also material costs, so on an instrumental solo, I make about $6 profit and over all, probably end up making $12/hour. If I had enough work to fill that time.
So that’s not going to work. I’m in the process of searching out services and/or businesses to partner with to make the process more automated with less labor time in order to give myself more time for my other business and do some more enjoyable things like… sleep.
My wife came up with a couple of amazing ideas just a few days ago, and I am already researching the possibilities she brought to my attention. She’s so smart.
So unless the WSMA, cannot reverse their recent action of marking all of PEL Music Publications musical literature as Permanently Out Of Print, (they call it POP, but it looks like POOP to me) I’m still here printing out solos, brass trios and woodwind (OMG) choirs. So step right up…
Gregg