BBCG Group Policies

The Big Band Charts Group is a wonderful community of big band musicians who have come together primarily for the purpose of helping each other out with missing parts, scores, etc., for big band charts that either have never been published or are out of print.

The main reason it's such a wonderful group is that most everyone is polite and considerate of others.

When you participate in the group, we all expect you to be polite and considerate as well, and to abide by the other etiquette guidelines listed below. That way, we can keep this group being as wonderful as it is right now.

The guidelines aren't hard-and-fast RULES; we don't have jackbooted storm troopers poised to raid your rehearsal if you don't abide by them. It's just a voluntary set of courtesies that has evolved as the group has grown. We hope you agree, and will help us keep this group a happy one.

All Members and prospective Members MUST READ THIS!

You must know our DNT policy, or you might be expelled from this group. We are serious. Read on for more information.

There are a number of publishers (at least three that we know of) who monitor our group, and who have asked us not to trade their charts. This is usually because those charts are still in print and you can buy the charts from them or their distributors.

We WILL honor those requests. We will NOT knowingly violate copyright law. This group is just too valuable to allow it to be shut down.

Please remember the purpose of this group. It’s one thing to trade material you cannot get, material that's out of print, or that was never available for sale. It’s an entirely different matter to trade currently available material. This is taking money out of someone’s pocket (whether you like their prices or not).

This is especially true in the case of writers who self-publish, ie. making the effort to do it all on their own without the backing of big publishers.

Thanks to the internet, pdf files, and music engraving software (Finale, Sibelius, etc), many arrangers now have their own websites, and are selling some of their titles - but unless we receive notice from these arrangers that "self-publish", there is no way of knowing that they are doing so.

A good example of this is Dave Wolpe. Although he offers many titles for sale through his own website, the rights to much of his work are still held by the various publishers who first printed those charts. (Some of these titles are NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR SALE, and therefore NOT on the DNT list.)

Over the past several years, it has become the group's policy not to trade any of the charts that arrangers "self-publish" - therefore anything listed for sale on their sites would automatically be a do-not-trade ("DNT") item. If you have a question, please check the respective author sites, or ask the group before posting or trading.

Bottom line: please do NOT trade charts that are still available for purchase. This is how we honor the guys writing great charts and trying to sell them. We want to encourage them to keep writing.

If someone in the group posts a request for missing parts, send them ONLY those parts - NOT the entire chart.

Before you post any chart to the group, PLEASE check the list below to be sure the publisher or writer is not listed.

To purchase charts by the listed publishers and writers, please see our Chart Sources page.

REQUESTORS: First, read this page again. Second, use a search engine to see whether the chart you want is in print. If it is, you should buy it from the authorized distributor. Second, if after this check, you still aren't sure, then phrase your request something like this: "Hey, everybody, I'm looking for the Fonkwiddle arrangement of 'The Fat Mermaid.' I can't find it in print anywhere, so if someone can point me to where to buy it, I'd be grateful. Otherwise, I'll be happy to trade for it. My list available on request."

REQUEST FILLERS: Do the same checks BEFORE sending a chart someone requested - read this page, then do a search engine lookup of the tune to be sure it's not available in print. I know many of us pride ourselves on our quick response, and this will slow us down a bit. But really, it takes less than half a minute, so that's definitely doable.

MISSING PARTS: If you have legitimately purchase a chart and your third trombone player ate his part, it is okay to request a replacement part from the group. However, you should consider asking the publisher for a replacement first, particularly if it was published by Lush Life (see below) or eJazzLines or another friend of the BigBandCharts Group.

The Big Band Charts moderators group has agreed that for our wonderful group to keep operating (so we are not shut down as have been groups before us), we must enforce the Do-Not-Trade (DNT) policy.

In a nutshell, the policy is this: we do not trade (request or send out) a full chart if that chart is still in print. We specifically do not trade charts from the arrangers and publishers listed below.

The penalty for violating this policy is this:

• First offense: you will be suspended from the group for three months. This is your wake-up call.
• Second offense: you will be expelled from the group and banned from rejoining.

We know that sounds harsh, but we need to emphasize how important it is NOT to take money out of the pockets of working musicians/arrangers/composers.

Publishers

Please do not trade ANY charts published by

• Lush Life (Collins, Harpin, Glasscock, Menard, and John Ferguson). On June 28, 2015, Myles Collins of Lush Life music posted the following regarding lost parts to the group: "As soon as I read the request this morning (down here in Australia) I sent the missing part. I'm always happy to help replace missing pages, especially if the chart was purchased as a legitimate copy. Part of the Lush Life service is, and always has been, to offer replacements for missing pages free of charge."
• www.ejazzlines.com
• Kendor
• Lincoln/Berger Charts (Ellington Series)
• Farley (ENGRAVINGS - hand-written is ok)
• Sierra Publications
• Walrus Publishing (now owned by ejazzlines)

Writers

• Matt Amy
• Eric Burger
• Bill Chase (for these charts, email billchasecharts@gmail.com)
• Jim Martin
• Chris McDonald
• Dave Wolpe
• Tom Kubis
• Mike Carubia
• Patrick Williams
• Paul Murtha
• Allan Carter (except "Prelude" - this was a free internet chart)
• Shaun Evans and his publisher Pepperhorn.com

Add "DNT" to the file name of any chart you have that falls under our Do-Not-Trade guidelines. For example,

"Bugwater DNT (Greebisch) 5444.pdf"

Alternatively, you could add the copyright symbol to the filename. Windows users can do this by holding down the ALT key and pressing 0169 (sequentially) on the numeric keypad. On a Mac, use Ctrl-G. For example, "Bugwater © (Greebisch) 5444.pdf" (Anyone know how to do this on Linux?)

Either of these will help you know at a glance NOT to trade that chart, and will help prevent accidental trades of a chart on the list.

If you have a question, please check the respective author sites, or ask the group before posting or trading.

Okay, now on to the list itself. LEARN this!

Occasionally, a discussion takes a rabbit trail, and as long as the discussion doesn't stray too far from the subject of big bands and their music, it's probably okay for a short while. But discussion of most other topics are best taken to another forum or conducted via private emails, not broadcast to the entire group.

In emails or forum postings, it's often difficult to tell when someone is joking. To be sure we don't hurt someone else's feelings, if you're joking, please include some indication of this, such as (Grin!) after your comment, or an emoticon (such as :-D). If you must poke fun, do so at YOURSELF, not at another person.

Before you click "SEND," read over your email one more time. Ask yourself, "Is there ANY possible way someone could misunderstand this? Or be confused by it?" Remember our group has over 500 members in it (as of August 2015), and not all of them are as smart as you are. Also, while we conduct our group's business in English, we have MANY members whose primary language is not English. Therefore, if there is any possible way someone could misunderstand or even be confused by what you wrote, please take the time to go back and rewrite it.

Here's an example, one I just received as a group posting today. "I recently bought a copy of this. has anyone else bought this and performed it?" Huh? This was the ONLY line in the message. Sure, the name of the tune was in the subject line, but what the sender didn't realize is that several email programs do not display the subject line when they show the message. How much more trouble would it have been to write, "I recently bought a copy of the McNerfball arrangement of Bithering Idiots. Has anyone else... (etc.)" That would have been much more clear, and immediately understood.

The word "flame" is used in online forums to describe put-downs of an individual. This includes use of negative adjectives, like "stupid" or "idiot." If we're going to be polite and considerate, there are better ways to say what we mean. If what you have to say is not complimentary, please consider whether you need to say it at all. If you need to poke someone or disparage someone, the ONLY acceptable target is ... yourself.

On the other hand, it's perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to lavish praise and approbation on other members.

Always offer something in trade whenever you request help from the group. There are two main ways to do this. First, you can post a chart to the group along with your request. Before doing this, be sure the chart is not on the No-Trade List, and try to be reasonably certain it's new to the group, such as a chart you've written yourself. The other way to offer a trade is to simply say so in your request, for example, "Could someone please help me find the second alto part to the Damien arrangement of GORGONZOLA? My trade list on request."

Speaking of a trade list, that brings us to YOUR list of tunes to trade. Typically, members here keep all their charts (PDF scans of their charts) in a single directory or folder on a hard drive. The contents of this directory or folder becomes your list of tunes to offer in trade. Please see our Directory Tools page for a discussion of how to turn your directory listing into a list suitable for trading.

Of course, it should go without saying that once you offer a trade, if someone requests a tune in trade, you should follow through on your offer.

When posting charts for the group, post in PDF format only, with all pages in one file. The chart should be complete, including a score if possible; if the chart is not complete, please at least include a note indicating which parts are missing.

It's okay to post Finale .mus or Sibelius .sib files, but these are NOT considered "charts." Rather, these postings are for others in the group who have Finale or Sibelius, so they can edit the scores, for such needs as to add missing parts, for example.

Many of our members filter through the tons of email we get by looking at the subject lines. Therefore, it's a great help to others if when you post a message to the group, you take a few extra seconds and be sure to create a descriptive SUBJECT for your email.

Something like "Need bari part for Nestico arr of YAK WAXING" is much better than simply "Need help" or worse, no subject at all.

When you reply to a thread and there has been a change of subject, it's also a good idea to change the subject to reflect the new direction of the thread.

While some people are sensitive about "releasing" their names into the wild internet (and because of this we somewhat reluctantly allow "handles" or pseudonyms), we haven't had any problems reported from members because of using their real names. So if you can, it would be nice to sign your posts with your real name and location. The group does enjoy knowing who they're "listening" to, and it's nice to see where everyone is from, so we can see just how widespread this group (and big band music) is.

This is simply a corollary of the "Offer Trades" guideline. If you ask for help from the group without offering anything in return, members will come to consider you a leech, or freeloader, and will begin to shun you and ignore your future requests. Do enough freeloading and you will be booted out of the group.

We all hate spam. Slimeball spammers LOVE to get forwarded emails with dozens or hundreds of other email addresses contained within - they all go into their machine to receive still more spam.

If you send an email to more than one person, unless you're sure everyone is pals, it's a good idea to use the BCC address box to put the recipients in. That way, none of the recipients can see the others' email addresses. If you are forwarding something cool, please delete all those other email addresses from the body of the email before you click SEND. (Thanks to John B for reminding us!) This will help us all keep our addresses more concealed from those with nefarious purposes.

When replying to another post, you should include just enough from the previous message to let everyone know what your answer is referring to - and NO MORE.

On the minimalist extreme, how often have you been confused, by a posting that said something like, "That's a great idea! Please do it." with no other clue what it meant?

At the other extreme are multiple reply-to emails, with the entire 27-message history included below your post. Some of these posts get to be incredibly long, and they don't need to be. Please delete all but the relevant content. Also, if your post to the group has too many reply-to levels, the Yahoo server will simply delete it without sending.

Not only is this the polite thing to do, but letting the group know you've received what you're looking for will let everyone else know they can quit looking.

Be sure to state WHAT it is you were looking for, because sometimes there are several requests floating around out there.

EXAMPLE: "Thanks so much to all who responded. I now have the missing trombone parts to Warbleflop's arrangement of CLAMBURGER BLUES."

(Thanks to Doug S for reminding us.)

More?

Just monitor the group for a week or two, and you'll pretty quickly pick up how we operate.