2015’s Top-Sellers in Print Music

As a component of our annual review of the past year, MMR contacted some of our friends in print music publication to learn what titles were the biggest sellers in 2015.

Mammoth albums and evergreen artists (1989, Zeppelin, Van Halen) led to big sales for retailers, but so did traditional method books and instructional folios. Read on to find out which publications were flying off the shelves last year…

Hal Leonard

1. Essential Elements

2. Hal Leonard Guitar Method

3. Faber Piano Adventures

4. Taylor Swift – 1989

5. The Daily Ukulele Songbook

6. The New Decade Series with Online Play-Along Backing Tracks

7. Willis Teaching Little Fingers To Play

8. The Real Book

9. First 50 Songbook Series

10. Van Halen Guitar Play-Along

“Thanks to the continuing efforts of the retailers, the education and lesson-related materials segment of our business is stronger than ever. Sprinkle in some of our new songbook series and pop sensations like Taylor Swift and 2015 is wrapping up nicely!” – David Jahnke, vice president national sales, Hal Leonard Corporation

Alfred Music

1. Alfred’s Basic Piano Library

2. Suzuki Violin School Violin Part, Volume 01 (Revised)

3. The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses – piano solos

4. Alfred’s Basic Adult All-in-One Course

5. Accent on Achievement, Book 1

6. Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method 1 (Third Edition)

7. Alfred’s Teach Yourself to Play Ukulele, Complete Pack

8. Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory: Complete

9. Led Zeppelin: Acoustic Sessions     

10. Sound Innovations for Concert Band, Book 1

“Business seems to be picking up. What started as a slow July for us has now picked up pace to where we had hoped we would be with the back to school season. Being a publisher whose strength is in educational music, we’re happy to know that he educational market is solid, and school programs are still strong. Even when there are the normal budget cutbacks, parents and booster organizations step in to fill the gap. Parents still feel that music is a core part of their children’s education and will do whatever it takes to support that.

“We live in a digital age, so that part of our business is strong and growing faster in percentage terms than the traditional areas. However, traditional print is still the largest part of our business and is very strong, especially in our methods areas, where print still outsells digital by a large margin. Yet, we are continuing to work with our dealers in the digital area through our TotalSheetMusic and Video On Demand websites, that dealers can either link to through an affiliate program, or fully integrate within their website. Many dealers are also taking full advantage of our EDI ordering system creating higher efficiency on both sides of the ordering process, and accuracy is greatly improved

“We’ve also teamed up with ‘Xchange Market Platform,’ so that dealers can sign up, at no cost, to be able to sell digital downloads of software products in their store and on their website, without having to stock any inventory. The platform can be integrated with their existing POS system so that the download codes can be printed out on customer receipts. See more: dealer.alfred.com/DealerPromotional/DealerResources/XchangeMarket.aspx

“We’ve boosted the revenue of our top selling methods, such as Alfred’s Basic Piano Library by adding new publications with current popular songs to enhance the line, but also through an increased marketing effort to teachers. Alfred provides lots of great multimedia marketing tools for dealers to use when promoting our products. We’ve also enhanced our best-selling titles by transitioning to a cloud based solution for the multimedia components of our publications.

“We are cautiously optimistic for future growth in an environment where pedagogically strong content, combined with multimedia and technological solutions, help teachers achieve success in their classrooms and studios.”

– Andrew Surmani,
chief marketing officer, 
Alfred Music

Carl Fischer

1. Arban Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet

2. Flesch Scale System for Violin

3. Clarke, Technical Studies for the Cornet

4. Bordogni, Melodious Etudes for Trombone, Book1

5. Schroeder, 170 Foundation Studies

6. Tucker Rhoda, ABC’S of Violin

7. Arban Complete Conservatory Method for Trombone

8. Guitar Grimoire, Scales & Modes

9. Simandl, New Method for The Doublebass

10. Guitar for Absolute Beginners

“Business in 2015 was steady compared to last year. Our method books are doing well, such as the evergreens Arban’s Trumpet and Flesch Scale System, with newly engraved version of Schroeder 170 Foundation Studies for Cello and Arban’s Trombone adding to our top sellers. We have seen an uptick in sales of smaller and flexible ensemble publications, especially in our Compatible and Progressive Ensembles Series.” – Rachelle Gayer, sales manager, Carl Fischer

Kendor

1. Inside The Score by Rayburn Wright

2. Contest Solos series for snare drum by Murray Houllif

3. Winning Snare Drum Solos series by Tom Brown

4. The Pink Panther instrumental solos, various editions, arr. Arthur

Frackenpohl

5. Kendor Concert Favorites string orchestra collection, various

composers/arrangers

6. Mozart Sonatina instrumental solos, various editions, arr. Jay Ernst

7. Foo Birds Of A Feather jazz ensemble by Reginald Thomas

8. Effective Etudes For Jazz by Mike Carubia & Jeff Jarvis

9. FlexTrios For All Winds mixed instrument collection, arr. Lennie

Niehaus

10. Motion multiple percussion solo, by Lynn Glassock

“Publishing for school instrumental programs continues to be extremely challenging and highly competitive. While the marketplace for student level performance works seems to be shrinking, I feel that our editorial department is developing and acquiring a great mix of new products. Together with the support of our network of retail print music dealers, Kendor is able to maintain a stable percentage of this market. We are also very excited to see a considerable spike in the growth of our digital sales with our exclusive distributor for downloadable print, Hal Leonard Corporation. Change is change, and as a small business we are fortunate to have a wonderful, dedicated staff with the foresight to realize and adapt quickly to abrupt changes in our industry.”

– Craig Cornwall, president, Kendor