Choral Music Library Organization
  • Susdem
    Posts: 25
    Hi all,

    We just repainted my choir room. In order to prep the walls, we had to take down all of the shelves which was where we stored our choral octavos. I'm considering completely reorganizing the entire library of music and was curious how other people organize their choral octavos. Do you organize it alphabetically by title, by liturgical season, something else? We previously had just used this system below:

    https://choirdirectorcorner.com/a-simple-system-for-organizing-your-choral-music-library/

    This is a nice system but I'm considering tweaking it so that each "letter" represents a particular voicing. Unison, 2 part equal, 2-part mixed choir, 3 part equal, 3 part mixed, 4 part, etc...

    Looking forward to hearing what others do.

    God bless,
    Susan
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,727
    I am thinking of putting arrangements together. That is, a motet might be in different keys/slightly different editions, or voiced differently. And that all goes together in order by composer. Anything that could be for benediction is together in the same eay by composer, hymns go together by season/theme (it’s going to be tricky as I add more hymns), and Mass settings are divided between choral and orchestral. Again, same thing as for motets: composers together. Big orchestral works also go with Masses for want of anything better.

    However I’m considering working on this in a modified way, and by the way the Choir Director Corner site is great. Love his warmups.
  • Susdem
    Posts: 25
    Back with an update. I'm doing a modified version of what I had been doing but with each category being a different voicing. So, all unison pieces together, 2-part equal, 3-part equal, 4 part equal, 2 part mixed, 3 part mixed, 4 part mixed. Then, I have a category for Ritual Music, and a category for Mass Settings and Large Works. I also have each category color coded with the color on the label along with the number (I'm creating new labels for every box).

    I'm really excited about it because it will make it much easier both to find music and to file it. It also looks really sweet on the shelves. I'll post a picture when I finish getting all the music filed. It's a big project but I'm really looking forward to the amount of time this new organizational system will save me.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • TCJ
    Posts: 1,064
    I separate into different drawers by language, then I arrange alphabetically. Further organization can be done on excel spreadsheets.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,337
    The system I inherited at the cathedral is just a running catalogue which increases by number with each acquisition. I have to say, that while it's easy to search in excel, it's not easy to find things in real life, or rather: it's not easy to browse, because things for "Advent" are spread between 9 different filing cabinets. My last parish had a relatively modest library, but I loved the system. There were main categories, alphabetically arranged. We had Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter, General Use, and a separate drawer for the special stuff that we favored and sang often. It was so easy to browse through all the Advent scores in one go, for instance, which helped me with my planning. It was also easy to thumb through things I didn't know, while constrained to the liturgical time I was interested in.

    One of my long term goals here is to empty out the filing cabinets, assess everything that is there, and then arrange it by category. Admittedly, it's not a perfect system because sometimes there are things that can really fit in more than one place. But there are many more things that are very clear. "Rorate Cæli" really only fits in one part of the liturgical year, so it's not hard to guess where that goes, and consequently, where to find it without checking the excel sheet.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • davido
    Posts: 1,231
    Alphabetically by title. Music is in filing cabinets. I catalogued it in an excel spreadsheet by title, composer, music history era, voicing, liturgical usage, and publisher.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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