MusicWriter
Encyclopedia
MusicWriter was founded in 1989 by music industry veterans Jon Monday
and Larry Heller to develop and market NoteStation, a kiosk-based retail "point-of-sale manufacturing" system for the distribution and printing of sheet music
. Besides having a very large library of songs across all music genres, the NoteStation was able to print the sheet music
on demand in any key, as selected by the customer. This reduced the need for retailers to carry a large selection of physical inventory, which was usually only printed in one key.
Early in the MusicWriter's history Warner Bros.
Music and Thorn EMI
, the two largest music publishers in the world, invested in the company and became board members. The company then was able to sign most of the major music publishers to offer their titles through the system.
MusicWriter was among the first applications of the new distribution paradigm of "Mass Customization" or "Point-of-Sale Manufacturing", where a retailer is able to offer a very large selection of a product, with virtually no inventory, and manufacture the customized product on the spot for a customer. This trend was documented in B. Joseph Pine II’s 1993 book, Mass Customization, The New Frontier in Business Competition published by Harvard Business School Press.
The company expanded its features to include producing MIDI files on demand and online ordering of music products from distributors.
The company was featured on CNN TV and written about in Fortune Magazine, Business Week, USA Today, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, and Popular Science.
Due to the major print music companies that fought against the technologies, in 1999 MusicWriter went bankrupt as online technology emerged and the decline of sheet music
retailers made the in-store technology obsolete. However, years later online versions of the technology were introduced by other companies, such as SheetMusicDirect.com, MusicNotes.com, and SheetMusicPlus.com.
Jon Monday
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski...
and Larry Heller to develop and market NoteStation, a kiosk-based retail "point-of-sale manufacturing" system for the distribution and printing of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
. Besides having a very large library of songs across all music genres, the NoteStation was able to print the sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
on demand in any key, as selected by the customer. This reduced the need for retailers to carry a large selection of physical inventory, which was usually only printed in one key.
Early in the MusicWriter's history Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Music and Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created in October 1979 when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but it demerged again in...
, the two largest music publishers in the world, invested in the company and became board members. The company then was able to sign most of the major music publishers to offer their titles through the system.
MusicWriter was among the first applications of the new distribution paradigm of "Mass Customization" or "Point-of-Sale Manufacturing", where a retailer is able to offer a very large selection of a product, with virtually no inventory, and manufacture the customized product on the spot for a customer. This trend was documented in B. Joseph Pine II’s 1993 book, Mass Customization, The New Frontier in Business Competition published by Harvard Business School Press.
The company expanded its features to include producing MIDI files on demand and online ordering of music products from distributors.
The company was featured on CNN TV and written about in Fortune Magazine, Business Week, USA Today, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, and Popular Science.
Due to the major print music companies that fought against the technologies, in 1999 MusicWriter went bankrupt as online technology emerged and the decline of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
retailers made the in-store technology obsolete. However, years later online versions of the technology were introduced by other companies, such as SheetMusicDirect.com, MusicNotes.com, and SheetMusicPlus.com.
External links
- Article in Fortune Magazine about MusicWriter
- Article in Business Week about Kiosk products, which features NoteStation
- Article in the International Herald Times about NoteStation and MusicWriter
- Article in Entrepreneur.com
- Article in Saratoga News about MusicWriter
- MusicNotes.com
- SheetMusicDirect.com
- SheetMusicPlus.com