[Trombone-l] Sonata (for Trombone and Piano) George Frederick McKay

[Robert Holland]

Robert Barron wrote:

> advised that I can find recordings of the piece by graduate students  
> at various universities, through the oclc worldcat library site  
> under: Author---McKay, George Frederick.  So I am going to try that  
> but in quickly glancing at the library site, I am confused as to  
> what I actually have to do.  So if anyone else has any other  
> suggestions or knows of an existing recording, they would be most  
> appreciated.

OCLC is a union catalog of library holdings but is not itself a  
library. It's a database provider. The database is not available to  
the general public, but you can get a reference librarian at almost  
any public or private library to do a search for you. A media or music  
librarian would probably be able to narrow the search quicker than a  
general librarian.

The recordings catalogued at OCLC include undergraduate and graduate  
recitals at a number of colleges and universities that archive such  
things. However, those recital recordings are not typically available  
commercially, and if they're for sale to the public, often carry a  
premium price because the old tapes have to be hauled out of storage  
somewhere, mounted, dubbed or ripped, and repackaged and sold. It's a  
lot of work. If you haven't found a commercial recording, an archived  
recital may be the only other source, but it may still not be  
available in a cost-effective form.

Curmudgeon's answer: back in the day before the Internet, before the  
atom bomb, before the automobile, before the wax cylinder, when  
students walked to school 10 miles uphill both ways in the rain and  
snow, the sheet music was the only "record" of the music, and  
musicians learned the repertoire via one-on-one instruction and no  
small amount of personal creativity.

Robert Holland, Publisher
Briar Music Press
publisher at briarmusic.com
http://www.briarmusic.com