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Help finding someone to type a short manuscript written in cursive

My stepfather-in-law, Art Woodbury, has written a short but excellent how-to book on jazz improvisation.1 The problem? It’s written in pencil. In shaky cursive. With many alterations, erasures, and insertions. Plus a mix of photocopied and hand-drawn musical notations. Some pages are easy to read, others, well, not so much.

Here are a few sample photos to give you an idea:

Page of difficult to read cursive written in pencil on lined paper by someone who learnt to write in the first part of the 20th century—there are several difficult to parse emendationsPage of difficult to read cursive written in pencil on lined paper by someone who learnt to write in the first part of the 20th century, with hand drawn musical notionPage of difficult to read cursive written in pencil on lined paper by someone who learnt to write in the first part of the 20th century—with photocopied music cut and pasted inPage of difficult to read cursive written in pencil on lined paper by someone who learnt to write in the first part of the 20th century, with a lot of hand written musical notationPage of difficult to read cursive written in pencil on lined paper by someone who learnt to write in the first part of the 20th century, with a lot of hand written musical notation

It occurred to me that perhaps those who work in archival curation might know some people who—for a reasonable fee—might be willing to turn these handwritten pages into editable, digital text. It’s hard to estimate the length but I’d be surprised if it were over 20,000 words, and I’d guess closer to 12,000.

This is the work of Art’s heart—and mind, and expertise—and he would dearly like to see it published. Time is not on his side (he’s 95). So if anyone has any ideas about where to look so we can get this initial part of the process rolling I’d be most grateful.

Here’s the thing, it’s not just that I would like to please my stepfather-in-law but I genuinely believe this handbook would be a useful manual. So, again, I’d really be grateful for any suggestions anyone has. Please leave a comment below or reach out via the contact form.

And thank you!

He knows whereof he speaks—he’s toured with the Harry James Band; done a lot of studio session work (he’s a saxophonist); taught musical practise, and theory, and improv at various universities. He was the first person, I think, to use the Stanford mainframe to compose—one of the first people to work on artificial intelligence there. He edited the first incarnation of Source magazine. He even played with Blue Cheer once at the Fillmore. ↩︎
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Published on August 09, 2025 12:33
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