About
A small software company for the musical trades.
Twenty Quires Software makes tools for people whose work is music: the players who need their bookings and invoices sorted, the teachers who need their lessons and families sorted, and the choirs that run on volunteers' evenings.
The name
Twenty quires
A quire is a gathering of sheets folded together, the unit from which books, and printed music, were made. Twenty quires of paper was a ream: enough for a working library of parts, or a year of a teacher's notes. It is also, said aloud, twenty choirs, which is roughly how many we hoped to be useful to when we started.
The founder
Made by someone who does the work
Twenty Quires was founded by Shaun Brown, a working musician and instrumental teacher who spent years running a choir's admin, teaching a full timetable and chasing his own invoices. Each product began as something that was taking too long on a Sunday evening, built first for his own use and then for the colleagues who asked for it.
How we work
Quiet, dependable, British
Defaults over settings. The software should already know the domain: terms, sections, lesson lengths, what a late cancellation means. If it needs explaining, it needs fixing.
Plain British English. We write the way a good programme note reads, not the way a startup does.
Other people's data is a responsibility. Our products hold details of pupils, parents and singers, including children. Data is hosted in the United Kingdom, kept only as long as it is needed, and never used for anything but the service. Each product publishes its data-processing terms and its list of providers.
Small on purpose. We would rather do two things properly than ten things adequately.
The company
Details
- Name
- Twenty Quires Software Ltd
- Products
- Gigfolio and Byrd
- Contact
- hello@20quires.co.uk