Project History

Or as well like to call it "How It All Started"

| Beginnings | Dana M. Bailey Collection | Colley-Selland Archives | Ed Ballenger Collection | Vaclav Klimek Collection | Chester Nettrower Collection |

Background / Project Beginnings

The North Royalton (Ohio) Community Band (NRCB) received a donation of several boxes of band music from the Klimek family of Parma, Ohio. The music had been accumulated by the Ambridge (Pennsylvania) Community Band. Mrs. Klimek's late husband had been the director of the band and Mrs. Klimek had been the music librarian for the band.

The music in the collection dated from late 19th to early 29th centuries. In all, the collection included over 400 band arrangements of marches, popular songs, patriotic songs, light classical music, and ethnic dances.

A 4-member committee of the NRCB took on the task of sorting through the mass of materials to catalog and arrange the library for use by the band. This work started in early January and continued to the middle of May, 2005. The committee met weekly at the North Royalton branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

A total of 13,816 pages were scanned. In all, we estimate that the project took about 500 man-hours to complete over a period of 5 months.

Since then, we've added two other collections.

Dana M. Bailey Collection

Dana M Bailey, born in the late 1800s in Newton Falls, Ohio, studied music at Dana School of Music. As a child protégé he played cornet in church. He gave cornet lessons and was involved in vaudeville both musically and theatrically.

As a young man, Dana became the band director for Berea College in Kentucky, where he attended college.. Later Bailey met his wife at Chautauqua Institution during the time he played in the Chautauqua symphony. It was at this time that he purchased an engraved silver cornet with earnings from the symphony. The same instrument was played by later generations; first by his great granddaughter and later his granddaughter, who subsequently performed with North Royalton Community Band.

Dana left music to earn more income for his family. He had a furniture business, was Mayor of Newton Falls and later an office manager. His appreciation for great band music never changed. He heard and in later years spoke highly of John Phillip Sousa.

"Life is much richer because of people like my grandfather." -- D. Papay

Berea (Kentucky) College Band, circa 1900 - directed by Dana M. Bailey

Founded and directed by Dana M. Bailey while a student at Berea College. The period photo relates to the Dana M. Bailey collection. It clearly demonstrates a typical band of the era with a minimum instrumentation.

Cooley-Selland Archives

Added April 2008

Vernon Cooley and James Selland were long time friends, musicians and collectors of music.

Vern, a carpenter and cabinet maker, played tuba at every opportunity in everything from concert to big band, dixie and polka groups. His son Floyd was for many years principal tuba with the San Francisco Symphony.

Jim was a music educator working with junior and senior high bands. He also directed municipal bands, fronted big bands and played for several years with a traveling circus in the summer. He was "first call" when groups needed a trumpet player.

These "public domain" concert band works are but a small part of their life-long collections.

Ed Ballenger Collection

Added June 2008

Ed Ballenger, Jeffersonville, Indiana, has had an illustrious career as a music educator, touching the lives of many students with his energy and passion for band music. He is an outstanding performer on euphonium and as an enthusiast for circus band music, is a long time member of Windjammers Unlimited. Ballenger's world class collection of band sheet music especially centers on circus music, including galops, marches, waltzes, trombone smears, rags and many more pieces suitable for circus performance. The musical focus goes beyond one- dimension and includes patriotic and military marches, overtures, solos and a full range of music by some of the best composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Vaclav Klimek Collection

The daughter of Vaclav Klimek, offered to present North Royalton Community Band with a music collection that had belonged to her father. Vaclav Klimek had been a band director in the early 1900s in Pennsylvania. The collection came in 8 or 9 boxes and had been stored by the family for many years after Mr. Klimek passed away. After moving several times, the family decided to try to find a home for all the music, preferably with a band that might put it to good use.

After picking up the music, we discovered that the publication dates ranged from the 1880s to early 1930s and included over 270 march size pieces, from "Alabamy Bound" to "Zacatecas"; and about 100 full concert and octavo size works.

The library was found to be in quite good condition, especially considering the age. It had been well cared for and kept in boxes. We began by sorting the music and creating an Excel list of all the pieces. This took most of the early winter, with the project team meeting once a week for about 3 hours. Despite the good condition, it was clear that the pages would not take well to handing out for a band to play. Pages were brittle and browning. And the edges flaked off easily.

Tom Pechnik suggested that we scan all the music and store it in digital format. When the initial shock wore off, committee members agreed and we scanned one of each instrument part for all 370+ pieces. [Click here to find the method that worked best for us.

While working with the collection, it became quite clear that this was a treasure trove of band music from that golden era. We wanted to get the music out of the boxes and into the light of day where it could be performed.

The next logical step was to make a decision to share this wealth, free of charge, with anyone who has an interest.

More information about the Klimek Collection.

Chester Nettrower Collection

Biography added July 2010

Chester M. Nettrower was born on September 26, 1907 in Enid, Oklahoma to James M. and Mabel E. Nettrower. Shortly after the birth of his sibling, Verna, the family moved to Sedgwick Co., Kansas then to Weiser, Idaho, where he later met and married Marie McKinney. By the 1940s Chester had moved to Walla Walla, Washington where he worked in a grocery and market for many years, eventually becoming the owner. He was a member of the Central Christian Church and the local Elks Lodge. Until the mid-1950s the Elks Club sponsored a concert band. Some of the music is stamped "Property of Chester Nettrower". During his lifetime the band library grew to a sizeable sheet music collection. Chester M. Nettrower died from an apparent heart attack at age 61 on November 6, 1969 and was buried from Central Christian Church in Walla Walla. His only listed surviving relative was his sister, Verna. It is not yet known how this music collection ended up in the Cleveland, Ohio area where 9 big boxes comprising more than 500 titles of band sheet music were donated anonymously to BandMusic PDF Library. Much of the music is now posted online to share with band music enthusiasts everywhere.

General Notes

Note: All of the titles on BandMusic PDF have been merged on the site, regardless of collection.