My thoughts about ArrangeMe Pro

Please note that everything written here is my opinion.

In April, 2024 Hal Leonard/MuseGroup (HL/MG) expanded their “ArrangeMe” (AM) self-publishing platform with a paid subscription “Pro” feature. For those that don’t know, AM allows composers and arrangers to upload their own music as well as arrangements from a large list of copyrighted titles. The music is distributed to Sheet Music Plus (SMP) – the business that originally started doing this but is now owned by HL/MG – and to Sheet Music Direct (SMD). If one uploads their titles via Noteflight, then it is distributed there as well as SMP and SMD. (Noteflight requires one to pay to use it).

Here are my initial thoughts why I will not be paying HL/MG to do some of the things they should offer to all AM participants for free.

The first thing you should consider before signing up for AM is this: Every time your title sells, HL/MG makes more money from it than you do! You are, in essence already paying them a percentage of your sale in the monies you don’t get via royalties if you had sold the title direct to a customer. Stop and think about this. HL/MG is a for-profit business. Providing all the tools at the basic, free level should help keep arrangers uploading material. The better the experience for purchasers by making some of the Pro features at the basic level will encourage arrangers to continue to use the product and should increase sales or at least drive repeat traffic.

I find it very hard to understand why some of the “Pro” features should not be free, if HL/MG is really interested in having AM arrangers sell more titles. Every time an AM arranger sells a piece, HL/MG makes money so it is to their advantage to offer some of the Pro features at the basic level. Ever since HL purchased SheetMusicPlus and created ArrangeMe my sales have plummeted. Only recently have sales started to see some increase, but nowhere near the levels previously seen. Search results on SMP favor printed music over digital music, or so it seems. I have doubts as to how committed HL/MG is to AM compared to titles available in printed formats. I can’t help but wonder if ArrangeMePro is little more than a way to increase cash flow to HL/MG? Another possibility I have to ask: Is this a way to hook customers into using Noteflight and ultimately making it the centerpiece of the ArrangeMe experience?

Looking at the details

At $80 a year for the Pro features, each of the features it offers will cost you around $11.43 per feature.

Publisher profile page on Sheet Music Direct

This feature allows the arranger to basically have a web-page all about them and feature certain titles using something they call a “carousel.” There is no detailed information or sample graphic on the ArrangeMe web page as to how this looks. When I first started with AM back when it was run entirely by SheetMusicPlus I had a bio page on SMP. Unfortunately one could not edit it and as far as I can tell, it is no longer there. From what little details are available, it looks as though one would have text about you, featured titles (with cover art) and I think links to your website and/or social media accounts.

Two thoughts come to mind. First of all, when you buy a piece of music how likely are you to care who arranged the music as long as it looks good and sounds good? I don’t really care who arranged the music I buy. So, I wonder how many customers will even look at this? This likelihood makes me question whether having a bio page is real value for my money? The second thought I had is from a business standpoint. It seems to me that the more a customer can know about an arranger, if they care to know anything about the arranger, the more likely a sale will be made. So, if there being a bio page available is more likely to result in a sale – and I’m not convinced it will – then why wouldn’t HL/MG not want to let every AM participant have a bio page so that there are more sales and thus more profit for them? (I would sacrifice the featured titles/carousel for a basic bio with links to my website and/or social media).

Custom Title images

On SMP, for searches, the system generates an image based on the first page in the PDF file. On SMD there is a generic image for all music from AM, no matter who arranged it. With the pro feature you can upload an image that either all of your titles will display or images for each title you have uploaded. But only on SMD. If you click on a title on SMD, you see the first page of music, similar to SMP. The AM website suggests that the image system on SMD may be coming to SMP. (I hope not). The end result is that rather than a customer seeing a generic image on a search result page on SMD they see whatever image you specify. When I look for music, I’m far more interested in the title of the piece and what it is arranged for. I actually prefer a list of titles without any graphics when looking for music, but then again I may be the exception.

If it is worth the money just to have a specific image for your title is something you’ll have to decide. In looking at search results on SMD, the images are rather small. That alone and the fact that I don’t care what images are present makes this feature of no real value for my money. Again, if HL/MG are really interested in selling as many AM titles as they can I would think they would at least let us specify one image to be shown for search results as part of the basic, free AM program.

Bulk Title Editing

There is no justification for not offering bulk editing at the basic, free level. None at all.

This feature is one thing that at first glance appears to be good value for the cost of the Pro subscription. You might think this is one of those things that would make life so much easier for AM participants with lots of titles available. Bulk editing would allow one to check for spelling mistakes, make sure prices are consistent among the various instrumentation and more. However, think about this. How often do you really need to edit all or a sub-group of your titles at one go? Yes, there are reasons for bulk editing but again, how often do you really need to do that? I would argue that there really is no reason to be bulk editing your titles more than once a year. Is being able to bulk edit really worth the cost if you only do it once or twice a year?

On the flip side, I will agree that bulk editing might give the customer a more professional, high quality experience across your various titles. It doesn’t look so great when there are inconsistencies across your titles, for example if one piece of music has a link to a social media account that is different than another and maybe no longer valid. But again, how often are you going to need to change all of your titles at once?

I have mixed feelings whether this would be a of value to me. If it was, then this is the only Pro feature that I consider to be good value. Unfortunately it isn’t worth $80 per year. So, again, not a reason to even consider the Pro option.

Free Noteflight subscription

This is one feature I find suspicious. I have evaluated Noteflight in the past and decided it wasn’t worth my time. If a significant number of AM participants pay for the PRO features and start using Noteflight, then Noteflight gets a lot of new customers. What happens when/if the Pro feature no longer exists or doesn’t offer a free noteflight subscription? People might be hooked and then HL/MG will make lots more money from subscriptions to Noteflight. Reading between the lines I can’t help but think that Noteflight isn’t doing as well as HL/MG would like, OR it is doing well and they want to get all AM participants to use it. Why is an interesting question.

AM participants who use Noteflight can have interactive scores. That can be a problem. Customers can change the layout size and transpose the parts. The downside for me is that when uploading a title to Noteflight, whatever layout, notation, beaming, slur placement, etc. that Noteflight does is sent to SMP and SMD. You no longer upload a PDF file to Arrangme. What your music looks like, even in fixed form is how Noteflight automatically makes it look, not how you want it to look. That is a major problem for me and should be for any composer/arranger or publisher who is concerned about the quality and look of your music.

The engraving that Noteflight produces is not terrible – for the most part – but it is definitely not good. It is barely a step ahead of the person who has never written music who downloads MuseScore, uses the default settings and thinks they’ve produced the most beautiful notation (when there are actually dozens of mistakes). There are so many things that result in unprofessional looking music from Noteflight that I haven’t the time to go through them all. I would hope that the developers of Noteflight would someday read the book Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation and apply at least some of the rules set out in it.

What is even worse is when the customer transposes or changes the size of the music. I’ve experimented with transposing existing titles on Noteflight only to have terrible results. As a composer and publisher I want the best quality typeset music being presented to customers. With interactive scores I have no say on how my music looks. Even telling Noteflight you don’t want interactive scores, the layout and engraving is determined by the software, not me. If you don’t care how your music looks, then Noteflight might be perfect for you but for any professional quality notation, don’t use it.

I can’t help but wonder if way down the road HL/MG is going to make Noteflight the only way to submit titles to Arrangeme. That would be terrible and a reason for me to remove all the titles I have on AM.

Expanded distribution via 5,000 Hal Leonard InStore retailers

This is somewhat of a joke as far as I’m concerned. I worked at a music store some years ago running the sheet music department. It was one of the top sellers in the SE USA of HL titles. If we didn’t have a title in stock that a customer was looking for, we immediately went to Sheet Music Plus (this was before it was bought by HL) and offered to print out the title to the customer if it was available. We may or may not have added a few pennies on to make a profit. In any case, the arranger got paid their normal royalties, the customer was happy and was more likely to come back. There is no reason a current music store can’t do that now.

So to say that there is suddenly “expanded distribution” is the joke. The music is already out there and distributed. There is no new distribution taking place.

One thing to note, according to posts in the ArrangeMe facebook group, the “in-store” sales are sometimes taking a cut of the AM participant’s royalties. It looks like the music store gets a cut of the sale but I’m not 100% sure. Instead of the typical 12% or 52% a Pro member gets – more about that later – the store gets a part of that percentage. The fine print in the AM user agreement says that HL/MG can deduct from the royalty for in-store sales. Whether the AM participants not getting their full royalties was a mistake or the way it will be only time will tell.

That music store I once worked for no longer exists. That brings up a point. These “instore” sales are only valid at brick-and-mortar stores. With more and more such stores closing down or downsizing, going forward just how many sales is one going to get via the “instore” sales?

For me, I just laughed when I saw this as a “feature” for Pro members. There is no value for your money from this feature.

Sheet Music Direct discount

One feature available is a 10% discount for titles purchased at SMD – with some restrictions. (What those restrictions are I’ve not been able to find out). First question to ask. When is the last time you bought anything at SMD? Not recently, not never? Then this is not a value for your money. In any case all it does is separate your money from you and give it to HL/MG. SMD only sells digital music that you have to print out or put on a tablet. Given that Sheet Music Plus offers an 8% discount for music teachers on digital and physical copies, I go that route when purchasing music. As an arranger/composer I find that if I need a piece of music, I write it myself. I rarely buy music unless it is something I have to have and can’t arrange.

For me, I see no value in this unless you are buying a signfiicant amount of sheet music every month.

Increased commissions

I saved this for last on purpose as it is the only real value one gets from the Pro plan, at least as far as I’m concerned. But is it really a “great” value? Pro members get an extra 2% on commissions (which should probably really be called royalties). This is the only feature that might have some value for what you pay to subscribe to the Pro feature. However, according to several posts on the Facebook group, in order to benefit from the increased amount you have to have at least $4,000 in gross sales every year. I’ve not taken the time to evaluate the math used, but it seems to be correct. I don’t make that much in gross sales a year.

The increase in royalties may be good for some people, but I would argue not for most people. It is not enough reason for me to sign up. It is a bit disheartening to think that when Sheet Music Plus started what is now the AM program, we got 30% to 40% royalties on copyrighted titles and I’m pretty sure we got 70% for public domain or original material. Now those numbers are 10% and 50% for basic; 12% and 52% for Pro members. Considering HL/MG doesn’t have to print out our music, create cover art for it or ship it to people, why are our royalty amounts so low?

Final thoughts

If you made it this far, great. I started to go into even more detail but this is wordy enough as it is. Hopefully what I’ve said makes sense and gives you insight as to whether you will or will not sign up for the Pro subscription. I will not any time soon.

If someone who joins Pro and sees, at a minimum, a 150% increase in sales within three months, then I might change my mind.

What I think should be done for basic members

• Bulk editing should be free
• A short bio on SMD, SMP and Noteflight with links to website/social media
• A single custom title image option and
• More publicity for all AM participants and better placement for all (free) AM participants in search results across HL/MG platforms with an emphasis on public domain arrangements and original compositions. (If a person is looking for an arrangement of a copyrighted title, they’re going to find it without the need for publicity).

If anyone needs a piano teacher, arranger/composer, audio mixer (in the box) or professional engraving work done, please drop me a note via my contact page.