Member's Guide for ACA
A Member's Guide to ACA
General Introduction and This Guide
ACA is a composers’ collective, with publication and distribution at the heart of our activities. ACA also publishes music under the name American Composers Edition (BMI) and American Concert Editions (ASCAP). ACA is administered by a board of directors elected by ACA's member composers, and has a long and distinguished history in 20th and 21st century American concert music.
We encourage music sales and performances by sharing our composers with our web of musicians, distributors, and schools; by providing materials prepared to high professional standards in print and online; by responding quickly and coordinating with interested parties and organizations; and by maintaining an informative, attractive website. ACA also handles with licensing options for performances and recordings on request.
This guide details your ACA member benefits, and how you can make sure your music is in the best shape possible for publication.
Basic Checklist for Submission
1. Prepare your scores at a professional level. (See the Score Preparation Guide)
2. Your own copyright notice must appear on the bottom of the first page of music, and say:
Copyright © [Year] [Composer's Name]
Publishing license granted to [American Composers Edition (BMI) or American Concert Editions (ASCAP)]
example:
Copyright © 1937 Aaron Copland. All rights reserved.
Publishing license granted to American Composers Edition (BMI)
3. Obtain necessary permissions for anything copyrighted by others.
4. Convert your score to a high-quality PDF.
5. Fill out the online registration form and submit your PDFs to the form. ACA completes BMI or ASCAP piece registration.
ACA Composer Work and Biography Webpage
Each ACA composer has a personal webpage on composers.com. Your address is most likely https://composers.com/composers/firstname-lastname. Check to make sure ACA has your current biography and photo.
So we can keep your works, biography, and news items updated, please send detailed information about upcoming performances, recording releases, and YouTube videos featuring your ACA-published music to acacomposers@gmail.com.
Score Deposit Guidelines
All incoming materials must be provided in standard digital files such as PDF, Finale, Sibelius, .mp3, .wav, etc. If you are not sure about a file format, check with us.
If submitting files as part of the registration of a new work, materials may be submitted as an upload within the New Work Registration webform. (You must be signed into your composers.com account to access this page.)
ACA can receive uncompressed audio files for works that require audio for performance, so long as the materials are for works that are registered and published by ACA. (There may be an extra annual fee if your electronic storage of audio and video at ACA exceeds 10 GB.)
We also can accept mp3 listening files for promoting your ACA music. You will be assigned a private, secure storage folder where you can upload any files for safekeeping or transferring to ACA.
ACA provides media files to customers as links for download for electroacoustic and digital-only works. Audio files, MaxMSP files, video, and other formats customers need to retrieve are placed on the ACA secure server and a link is provided inside the score for the customer to access the files.
Paper scores and parts, or audio in CD, cassette, LP, or reels, are no longer accepted for deposit at ACA. We can suggest scanning or transfer services. Be sure you keep single side masters of your scores and parts for reproduction and scanning, not bound copies, which are not useful for ACA.
If you submit PDF scans of scores, we accept only high-resolution files. Some home-scans are not acceptable and do not reproduce well. Customers expect professional-looking scores and parts from ACA. Send a page or two test (if you are scanning pages) for ACA review before scanning or uploading loads of files.
ACA may reformat pages, but will not alter any musical elements of scores submitted for consideration without permission. ACA might ask the composer for corrections, and delay distribution for works that are not submitted in professional, ready-to-print master files.
Text and Other Copyrighted Material
Every use of a text or translation or other copyrighted material written OR FIRST PUBLISHED prior to Jan. 1, 1926 is in public domain in the U.S. If not, you may need to obtain permission from the copyright holder PRIOR to your use of the material in your music score. Permission must be in writing from copyright owner (e.g., the author, estate, or publisher).
Composers should obtain permission for use, BOTH to perform in public AND to distribute sheet music.
At the time you submit a score to ACA for registration, you are required to provide evidence that rights to any other author's work that appears in your piece have been cleared for public performance and print distribution.
This includes any texts sung or spoken, music tunes embedded, audio samples, etc. You may request guidelines/template for requesting text clearances. If needed, ACA can direct you to people you may hire for assistance with this. You can increase the sales and longevity of your music by using materials that can be cleared for the uses related to publishing, performing, and recording music.
Naming Your Files
Start the file name with your surname, followed by the title. The full legal title of the work is preferred, but you may truncate as needed to keep the file name to a useable length of 12 to 15 characters.
Do not use special characters or symbols in a PDF file name, regardless of whether or not they are in the actual title. This includes commas, accents, foreign characters, symbols < > : " / \ | ? * &
The file names should begin with the surname of the composer followed by the underscore and then title.
Be consistent with the title everywhere.
If you have more than 8 part files, please number them in score order 01, 02, 03 etc.
Change any foreign character symbols, such as è. None can be used within the computer file name. Spell out numbers, such as ThreeSongsforTenorPf, or TwentyFourItalianSongs, etc. (not 3SongsforTenorPf, or 24ItalianSongs).
Here are examples of files named correctly:
Howe_Prism.pdf
Sacco_SonataBsTbnPf_Score.pdf
Sacco_SonataBsTbnPf_BsTbn.pdf
If there are more than 5 parts in a work, please put a number on each of them within the file name so they fall into score order. This way we (and you) can easily see when something is missing. Print jobs will be done in the right order for delivery to the customer. Example:
Howe_1Fl1.pdf
Howe_2Fl2.pdf
Howe_3Ob1.pdf
Howe_4Ob2.pdf
Howe_5Cl1.pdf
Howe_6Cl2.pdf
etc.
Submitting All Your Materials
If you have materials that do not fit in the form, please upload them to your ACA-provided box.com folder, send them via your own transfer program, or email them to acacomposers@gmail.com. PLEASE PUT THE TITLE OF THE WORK IN THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EMAIL.
Other materials to send can include:
- Sound recording of performance as mp3, if available.
- Written permissions granted to you for use of other authors’ work (texts, embedded tunes, etc.).
Revisions: If you revise a score, please email it to acacomposers@gmail.com.
Excessive revisions to works that have been printed and sold may incur fees.
ACA will create the Cover file for your works. It helps if you create your own title page and a page with program note, and/or texts, translations, instrumentation.
Sharing and Selling ACA Works Yourself
If you choose to send out your scores on your own, but want them to be registered through ACA, the following information is required to be at the bottom of the first page:
American Composers Edition (BMI)
www.composers.com
New York, NY
or
American Concert Editions (ASCAP)
www.composers.com
New York, NY