Web Evaluation: J.W. Pepper

1. Name of Website: J.W. Pepper
   

2. Web Site Address: www.jwpepper.com
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: Copyright, J.W. Pepper & Son, Inc. No Copyright date was listed or last update.
   

4. Author/organization Credentials: J.W. Pepper and Son, Inc. touts itself as the “World’s Largest Sheet Music Retailer” and has it’s home office in Paoli Pennsylvania. J.W. Pepper also has 15 regional offices around the country.
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 9. This site is very easy to use and so much better than the days of spending hours in a dusty music library or music store.
   
   From this site, you can quickly and easily view and listen to music for choral music, band music, orchestra music, church music, classroom music, lesson books, folk music, gift ideas, instrumental music, solo and ensemble music, jazz music, piano music, vocal music, study scores, as well as purchase music technology and even gifts. The drop down boxes lets you quickly focus your searches for the specific ensemble you are looking for. Music is also graded according to difficulty to keep you from wasting time searching through college level literature for a children’s choir. There are specific groupings for Holiday and specialty music if you are looking for the right Christmas song for your men’s choir.
   
   After narrowing down your search according to your group’s needs, genre, style, etc, you can then listen to the entire piece using “Real Player” and view parts of the piece using “Adobe Acrobat”. At this time, not all music is available to listen to or view but the majority of it is. The navigation is very smooth and fast and so helpful in finding the right music for your group.
   
   One of my favorite features of the site is the “e-print” feature. You no longer have to wait for them to ship your music for you to get started. You can now purchase and download a digital copy and print it from your school. You can either print one copy to get started and order the rest to be shipped, or pay the copyright fees to do all of the printing yourself. This is such a time saver and saves procrastinators like me! From my experience, not all of their library is available for e-print but as they progress, more and more is becoming available.
   
   The only reason I would hesitate to rank this site a ten is for the following two reasons. First, the site does not operate properly with “Firefox” as your web browsing software. They need to fix this as so many use “Firefox” for their web browser and it is a pain to have to remember to open this site with “Internet Explorer”. Second, I don’t like that it requires “Real Player” for listening to the music. I’m not a fan of “Real Player” and some schools will not allow its use on their networks. So, for these teachers, they have to do their music shopping from a home computer or be a thorn in the side of the school’s technology director. I wish Pepper would post the songs with the option of “Real Player” or “Windows Media Player”. This should cover all needs.
   

6. My response and recommendation for use: It may be strange to review a retail store for this assignment but I feel that this site definitely falls under the “practical to the work in your content area” guideline for music teachers. In the past, a music teacher only had two ways of finding new music for their ensembles. First, to go solely on the recommendation of fellow music teachers, hoping that what worked for their ensemble would also work for yours, or second, to spend countless hours sitting at the “Pepper Booth” at a music teachers convention such as TMEA, rummaging through piece after piece, singing them to yourself, hoping that the music you took home with you would work for your ensemble. This site has made this process of choosing music much more streamline and helpful in choosing curriculum (the music you teach) that will both challenge the students to higher learning and give them success in the music they perform.
   
   While there are a few other websites and companies that have this service (www.popplersmusic.com and www.rbcmusic.com) , JW Pepper is the industry standard and by far the biggest and best website. This site is used by every music teacher (middle school, high school, college, band and choir) that I know for choosing music that is best suited for their ensembles. I would recommend that any teacher going into teaching music be well versed in the use of this site.
   
   Finally, all music teachers should be well educated in the copyright laws of music use. Teachers on a short budget or looking for shortcuts will be tempted to order a single copy of music and simply photocopy enough for his or her entire ensemble. This is illegal and can get your school and you into a lot of trouble.