Live More Lightly Songbook and Workshop Guide - Live More Lightly

Life-Cycle Responsibility

Time is slipping away so fast with so many details to take care of to realize the Live More Lightly Project. One of the reasons this project is so complex is that I have taken life-cycle responsibility for the product that I am producing. The product in this case is a multi-media book, but the principals apply to anything produced. In this post, I will refer to the concept of the universal product as a “widget”. The recent rush to re-cycle widgets properly is to be applauded, but the idea of considering the environmental impact of every aspect of producing and maintaining the product is often overlooked.

My particular widget, the “Live More Lightly Songbook and Workshop Guide” will be printed using the most environmentally friendly processes available. The included disk will have to be made from virgin plastic, so the choice will be based on price, although I plan to choose a company that uses environmentally sound practices when they can. This is the point where many producers believe they have done enough, but I continue to examine my practices: can I live more lightly?

I am writing the book using a computer that I built from mostly re-cycled parts and the notebook I bought to take on the tour was manufactured by AsusTek, a leader in re-use and re-cycling of its products. I am using Ubuntu Linux on both computers (the notebook came with Vista, so it is dual-boot) because I believe that open source software is more efficient and uses less resources. This is a statement I can’t provide academic proof for, but I know it saves my resources. With Windows and Mac computers I have to spend time working to be able to afford the product, then after spending considerable sums of money, I usually have to spend hours troubleshooting. With Linux, if you can get it to work — it is yours. I want to have good karma on this project and use legitimate software only. The software I am using in Ubuntu would take me months of work to afford because I do not want to be a software pirate.

Continue reading Life-Cycle Responsibility

Forest Stewardship Council Certification

In my quest to produce the most environmentally friendly book possible, I am investigating printers that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council of Canada. Their site has links to all of the FSC certified printers in the country.

Although it would be a lot less expensive to produce my book in Asia, I am willing to pay to “Live More Lightly.” I am sure that each individual who makes this choice influences other printers to change to more environmentally sensitive processes. There will always be a market for the absolute lowest cost production, but our children and grandchildren will pay for the damage we cause today. Friesen’s Corporation, one of the first FSC certified printers in Canada, produced a survey that showed that book buyers would be willing to pay more for a certified publication. I believe that the difference in price will be reasonable and that I can sell my book package for $18.95 Can/US.

I am confident that a Canadian FSC certified printer is doing the best that they can within the limitations of current technology. My father owned a printing business after being an offset printer and letter-pressman in larger firms and my grandfather was a lithographer and a craftsman in time before digital print. The toxic inks, cleaning chemicals and other air-borne pollutants aggravated his lungs and contributed to his smoking-related breathing problems. My father, who retired from the printing business many years ago, also had to deal with toxic chemicals in the workplace, but now inks are vegetable based and digital files make many other toxins obsolete.

I will have to get more quotes and weigh the environmental cost of shipping a lot of books over long distances. I won’t be able to carry large numbers of books on my motorcycle, so I will need to ship books to fulfill orders. I would like to sell my book in stores as well as through the internet and in person. To do this I need a distributor who will accept book orders and ship the books to re-sellers. Most book distributors are in Eastern Canada, and if I can arrange a contract with a distributor then I could have half the books shipped there and half to Vancouver. That narrows the choices to somewhere between Vancouver and Toronto . . . still a lot of choices.

Working on the Cover

Today I worked on the text and the cover of the book. I tried Xara Xtreme and had a few issues, but the learning curve was acceptable and I managed to try out a few ideas.

I really like the title font, but it is too light and bold seems to have no effect.

This is a different font, but I forgot to re-center
my name at the bottom.

This one has my name centered.

I tried lots of other ones, but these are my favourites . . . so far.

Xara has a few peculiarities in Ubuntu Linux. Bold seems to have no effect and there is no font sizing between set size parameters that are quite far apart. There may be a different approach to font sizing and bolding, but I haven’t found it yet. I really like the transparency and feathering controls, which are very precise. I may have to use a variety of tools to get the features I need while staying open source.

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June 15, 2008

So far, everyone I ask likes #2 0r #3. The Font is too faint and regular on #1.

Vote for #2 or #3!

Here are larger versions in the same order. I tried to make them the same size, but due to sizing for the drop shadow, they turned out a bit different.

Image #2, the bottom bar is the same colour and transparency , but I faded the title colour box back. I haven’t found guidelines in Xara Xtreme or a way of cropping the image. So everything is aligned with a trained eye, but I will have to re-do the whole thing for the real cover. The Gimp was used to crop these from a screen shot,, then back to Xara for drop shadow. I can do some tasks in Scribus too. Between these three programs, I hope to do my book in open source only. So far, it just slows me down because I know how to do somethings in each program. I can’t get CMYK or drop shadow in The Gimp, I can’t crop in Xara and I can’t scale in Scribus. I have no guidelines ( a great feature of InDesign) in any of these programs so far and I have not found an option that lets me view the grid. I know that these programs are also available for Windows and maybe for Mac OS, but I am being stubborn and trying to use Linux because it forces me to learn it.

Xara works with vectors, even treating fonts like vectors. I love the font tools as I can move, scale and even use effects easily. I didn’t use any effects on these, but I might try some out later. In this version I changed the bottom bar to a different colour and made it more transparent. I also blurred the drop shadow more effectively.

Below is the same font as #3 in the previous post above.

Environmentally Friendly CD?

Now I am getting closer to producing the book, I have to try to find the most environmentally friendly CD production process. All CDs and DVDs are made of virgin plastic because recycled plastic always has too much risk of impurities. Any impurity in the disk plastic will result in the laser skipping over that part or returning an error to the reader.

I was unable to find any company that is using a different process to manufacture disks so far, but packaging has come a long way since the plastic jewel case. Many CD/DVD duplication companies have taken the lead in reducing their environmental impact. I am listing my top picks for now and will continue to research until I have to finalize production.

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THE MMS CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

MMS is committed to reducing its environmental footprint.When you have your CD manufactured by MMS, you are purchasing products and services from a company that is doing its utmost to reduce its environmental impact.

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Oasis Disk Manufacturing is probably the best known manufacturer of independent music projects in the US. They have a great reputation in the industry and were one of the first to supply cardboard sleeves instead of jewel cases.

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Live More Lightly Creative Commons License

The Live More Lightly Songbook and Workshop Guide by Victoria Gibson

is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at livemorelightly.com/creative-commons-license.

Live More Lightly Score

I finally have a screenshot function in Ubuntu so I can show you a draft of page one of the Live More Lightly Song score. This is a thumbnail to show the viewer and the additional pages. Eric is a very busy person, so I am glad that we are able to work through e-mail now. Progress is being made and should have this basic arrangement for voice and piano ready to send to our editor soon. The information about our editor will be posted on the “About Our Team” page soon.

I made a larger version so you can see the music. I really like Eric’s piano arrangement and I will have to work out a guitar chord accompaniment too.

Due to time constraints I may end up setting up web downloads for licensed users of the book. The idea of this book is a bit different because I am selling a license, no different than a software license, that gives the book buyer the right to print copies of the parts as they require more. Unlike most publications, the print ready parts are provided on a disk and more can be printed or photocopied if the group expands. I want the workshop organizer/ choral leader to be able to use this music with a variety of different groups, so we are providing different arrangements, the basic version is shown below.

We are also preparing a SSA (soprano,soprano,alto) and SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) with piano. I hope to have everything finished a month before I leave. I have to keep working ….

Tech Notes: The score was prepared on a Mac Powerbook G4 with Finale.

The Songbook Cover

This is my first attempt to create a cover with the photo “At Water’s Edge” by Michael Wheatley. This photo really grabbed me as the reflections in the water look like an abstract painting. I love the colour pallet and will be working to create a design that will show the beauty of the natural landscape.

Tech Notes:

This cover was created using The Gimp and Scribus open source tools on the Ubuntu platform. These programs are quite different from the usual Photoshop + InDesign that I am used to, but I am working hard to get the same level of functionality.

Live More Lightly Sheet Music

Eric and I have been working steadily on preparing the sheet music for the book. I am entering it in Finale on the MAC G4 Powerbook that I sold to the studio I work at. I had designed the studio with the Mac integrated, so I realized I had to get another notebook for this tour. I may still have to get a Macbook Pro, but so far I am able to have access to the studio and work on the score.

The new notebook with Vista installed, will soon dual-boot with Ubuntustudio distro, but so far I have not found a good open-source notation program. I really like this notebook that I am updating this post with, but I have no Vista software, everything I have is XP or Windows 2000. I prefer Ubuntu as I can download available software at no charge and so I don’t have to re-purchase or buy updates for software that I already own. The Ubuntustudio distro is supposed to be loaded with software that I had to hunt down in the Gutsy distro that I have installed on my desktop. However, besides Lilypond, which I did try, but could not really figure out, there isn’t a really good notation software that I have found.

I wanted to put a screenshot of the music notation on this page. Ubuntu (so far) is not doing screenshots. Vista does screenshots, but I have no photo editing software to make a .jpg to upload into WordPress. My XP computer has no internet access (planned ultimate firewall – no ethernet cable and no wifi card) because it is my music production computer, so I can’t download the file and upload the result. Off to the studio to try it on the Mac … I remember downloading some open source freeware photo software a while ago. Transitional times in cyberspace — but I hope that once I get the notebook set up and all the tools I need in Ubuntu then I will be able to concentrate on the project and not the enabling technology.

Arrangement and Sheet Music Production

I have just met with Eric Hominick to start production work on the “Live More Lightly Songbook” and we put in a very productive session in the studio. We are working on producing sheet music for three arrangements of the song.

The basic version: very accessible -contains sheet music for the melody, a simple piano accompaniment, guitar chords and the lyrics.
The intermediate version: Suitable for school and community choirs, vocal groups and facilitated workshops – builds on the above by adding vocal harmony and part singing.
The challenge version: For a trained choir or vocal group – includes more advanced piano accompaniment and part singing.

All the versions will be published in one book, with only the basic version printed out in full. Sample pages of the other printed arrangements will be included in the book so that choral directors can assess the suitability for their group. Parts for versions 2 + 3 will be included on CD for the group to print out.

Directions for the workshop will be included so that people can do the entire process without me. A list of environmentally friendly suggestions will be included to help people develop their personal commitment to living more lightly.

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Equipment utilized: Disklavier piano => MIDI to USB by MOTU => Logic Pro Audio on G4 notebook OSX3.9

Environmentally Friendly Book Production

The “Live More Lightly Songbook” is in the production stage now and I am researching environmentally friendly book production methods. The Association of Book Publishers of BC (ABPBC) has already done a lot of the work for me and has produced an EcoKit that you can download from here.

They also recommend visiting Markets Initiative to find out more about ancient forest friendly paper. I am so happy when I see industries making the move towards reducing the impact that humanity has upon the planet.

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I also intend to minimize the amount of material I use by making the book as small as possible and including the rest of the content on CD. Updates, additional arrangements and other extras may be downloadable from the website. I would like to compile a library of song performances, so that every participant can feel the support of all of the other singers.