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'''Carol Yager''' ([[1960]]-[[1994]]) holds the distinction of having been the [[obesity|most obese]] person ever to live. When she died in 1994 at the age of 34, she weighed about 1200 [[pound (mass)|pounds]]. Some estimates place her weight at as much as 1600 pounds at her peak, but these are unverified. At death, she was 5'7" tall, and able to fit through her custom-built 48" wide front door, although some sources claim she was more than 5 feet wide.
[[Image:Lilypond-screenshot-adeste.png|thumb|300px|right|Sheet music is written representation of music. This is a traditional piece entitled ''Adeste Fideles''.]]
Like others in the 900+ pound weight class, Yager was not able to stand or walk, as her [[muscle]]s were not strong enough to lift her due to [[atrophy]].
'''Sheet music''' is [[musical notation]] written down on [[paper]]; it is the [[music]]al analog of a [[book]].
She lived in Mt Morris Township, near [[Flint, Michigan]], and was cared for by health care professionals, friends, her daughter Heather, and other family members, many of whom visited daily.
With the exception of solo performances, where memorization is expected, classical musicians ordinarily have the sheet music at hand when performing. Even in [[jazz]] music, which is mostly [[improvisation|improvised]], there is a lot of sheet music describing [[arrangement]]s, [[melody|melodies]], and [[chord (music)|chord]] changes.
Yager claimed to have started her massive weight gain deliberately as a child to discourage the sexual attacks of a "close family member," although in later interviews, she indicated that there were other contributing factors, or "skeletons in my closet", and "monsters" as she was quoted.
Sheet music is less important in other forms of music, however. In [[popular music]], although sheet music is produced, it is nowadays more usual for people to [[learning music by ear|learn the piece by ear]] (that is, by imitation). This is also the case in most forms of western [[folk music]]. Musics of other cultures, both folk and classical, are often transmitted orally, though some have sheet music, and a few use hand signals or some other device as a learning mnemonic.
In January, 1993, she was admitted to Hurley Medical Center, weighing-in at 1189 lbs. She suffered from [[cellulitis]] (her skin was breaking down due to the stress of holding in her mass). She stayed in the hospital for three months, where she was restricted to a 1200 [[calorie]] diet, and while there, lost 519 pounds, though most of this was fluid. (Massively obese people often suffer from [[edema]], and their weight can fluctuate with astonishing speed as fluid is taken up or released.) Yager sufferred from many other obesity-related health problems as well, including breathing difficulty, a dangerously high sugar level, and stress on her heart and other organs. Yager's death certificate lists kidney failure as the cause of death, with obesity and multiple organ failure as contributing causes.
The skill of [[sight reading]] is the ability of a musician to perform an unfamiliar work of music upon viewing the sheet music for it the first time. Sight reading ability is expected of professional musicians and serious amateurs who play classical music and related forms, especially for paid musicians.
It took a lot of teamwork among as many as 15 - 20 fire fighters and ambulance workers to convey Yager to the [[ambulance]], in relay fashion. One team inside the house would pass her through the doorway to another team on the outside, who would in turn pass her off to another team inside the ambulance, where she would ride on the floor, for her many trips to the hospital (13 times in two years). Eventually, she was moved into the [[nursing home]] where she lived after leaving the hospital. She appeared on the [[Jerry Springer Show]], and was the subject of attention from several [[dieting]] gurus.
== Types of sheet music ==
A short time before her death, Yager's latest boyfriend, Larry Maxwell, who was characterized by her family as being 'an opportunist who courted media attention for money-making possibilities', married her friend, Felicia White. Maxwell had claimed that the only donation in Yager's name he ever received was for $20.00, although numerous talk shows, newspapers, radio stations, and other national and international media are reported to have offered her cash and other gifts in exchange for interviews, pictures, etc. Diet maven [[Richard Simmons]] is said to have been 'angry that Yager's story was actively peddled to tabloid and television media by Maxwell and others'.
Sheet music may come in several different forms. If a piece is written for just one instrument (for example, a [[piano]]), all the music will be written on just one piece of sheet music. If a piece is intended to be played by more than one person, each person will usually have their own piece of sheet music, called a ''part''. If there are a large number of performers required for a piece, there may also be a ''score'', which is a piece of sheet music which shows all or most of the instruments' music in one place. Scores come in various forms:
Yager was buried privately, with about 90 friends and family members attending memorial services.
[[Image:full score.jpg|thumb|250px|A conductor's score]]
*A ''full score'' is a large book showing the music of all instruments. It is large enough for a [[Conducting|conductor]] to use in rehearsals and performance.
*A ''miniature score'' is like a full score, but reduced in size. It is too small for practical use, but handy for studying a piece of music.
*A ''study score'' is a rather vague term, sometimes used as a synonym for ''miniature score'', and sometimes used to mean a score somewhere between the size of a full and a miniature score.
*A ''piano score'' (or ''piano reduction'') is an [[arrangement]] for piano of a piece for many instruments. It will often include indications of which instrument plays the various [[melody|melodies]] and other notes.
*A ''vocal score'' is one that has all the vocal parts, both [[chorus|choral]] and solo, on separate [[musical staff|staves]]. It will sometimes also include a basic piano accompianment. It is used by singers and to rehearse vocalists separately from the instrumental ensemble.
*A ''short score'' is a reduction of a work for many instruments to just a few staves. Short scores are not usually published, but are often used by [[composer]]s on their way to producing a finished piece. Often, a short score is completed before work on [[orchestration]] begins.
It should be noted that the word ''score'' can also refer to the [[incidental music]] written for something such as a [[play]], [[television]] programme, or [[film]] (when it is called a [[film score]]).
* [[List of the most obese humans]]
== Sources ==
[[Popular music]] and [[jazz]] songs are often recorded using a ''lead sheet'', which indicates the melody and lyrics, but only provides a rudimentary description of the harmony. Usually, this is done by writing the names of [[Chord (music)|chord]]s above the melody.
* [http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm Dimensions Magazine, people known to have weighed more than 900 pounds]
* ''Bizarre'' magazine 64, p. 81
* [http://www.mlive.com/fljournal/ The Flint Journal]
* ''The Flint [Michigan] Journal'', Wednesday, August 18, 1993, page A1, "Weight loss brings star status" by Mike Stobbe (Journal health writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Tuesday, May 24, 1994, page C1, "Obese woman's losing bid to lose hits TV show"
* ''The Flint Journal'', Friday, June 17, 1994, page A1, "What next for 1,200-pound woman?" by Marcia Mattson (Journal staff writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Tuesday, July 19, 1994, page A1, "1,200-lb Woman dies" by Marcia Mattson
* ''The Flint Journal'', Wednesday, July 20, 1994, page B1, "Richard Simmons mourns Yager" by Marcia Mattson
* ''The Flint Journal'', Sunday, July 24, 1994, page B1, "1,200-lb. woman more than curiosity" by Ken Palmer (Journal staff writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Monday, July 25, 1994, page A6, "Americans must work harder to overcome weight problems"
[[Category:World record holders|Yager, Carol]]
[[Category:Obesity|Yager, Carol]]
[[Image:StCeciliaDomenichinoLouvre.jpg|thumb|left|280px|A putto holds the score for [[Saint Cecilia]] in [[Domenichino]]'s painting of 1617-18 ([[Louvre Museum]])]]
[[Category:1960 births|Yager, Carol]]
Before the [[15th century]], music was written by hand and preserved in large bound volumes.
[[Category:1994 deaths|Yager, Carol]]
The first machine-printed music appeared around [[1473]], approximately 20 years after [[Gutenberg]] introduced the [[printing press]]. In [[1501]], [[Ottaviano Petrucci]] published ''Harmonice musices odhecaton'', which contained 96 pieces of printed music. Pertucci's printing method produced clean, readable music, but it was a long, difficult process that required three separate passes through the printing press. Single impression printing first appeared in [[London]] around [[1520]]. [[Pierre Attaingnant]] brought the technique into wide use in [[1528]].
In [[1575]], [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth]] granted a monopoly on printing music to [[Thomas Tallis]] and [[William Byrd]]. This expired in [[1596]], when the monopoly was given to [[Thomas Morley]] instead.
In the [[19th century]] the [[music industry]] was dominated by sheet music publishers. In the [[United States]], the group of publishers and composers dominating the industry was known as "[[Tin Pan Alley]]". In the early [[20th century]] the [[phonograph]] and recorded music grew greatly in importance. This, joined by the growth in popularity of [[radio]] from the [[1920s]] on, lessened the importance of the sheet music publishers. The [[record industry]] eventually replaced the sheet music publishers as the music industry's largest force.
In the late [[20th century|20th]] and into the [[21st century]], significant interest developed in representing sheet music in a [[computer]]-readable format (see [[Music Notation Software]]). Several systems have been developed to do this, including [[Finale (program)|Finale]], [[Sibelius notation program|Sibelius]], [[GNU LilyPond]], and [[GUIDO]].
The [[Mutopia project]] is an effort to create a library of [[public ___domain]] sheet music, in a way similar to [[Project Gutenberg]]'s library of public ___domain books.
==External links==
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{{commons|Category:Sheet music}}
<!-- Links to sites that sell sheet music, and links to sites with excessive advertising are not welcome here, please see [[Wikipedia:External links]] for details -->
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/4 Project Gutenberg] - Free Sheet Music
* [http://www.easybyte.org Easybyte] - Free easy piano sheet music in the public ___domain (classical, hymn, folk)
* [http://www.notation.com/MidiNotatePlayer.htm MIDI files to sheet music] - Free tool for converting MIDI files to sheet music
* [http://www.mutopiaproject.org Mutopia project] - free sheet music archive
* [http://www.musicwebcenter.com/freesheetmusic.html Sheet music links]
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