After being inspired by Amy’s post on organizing her printed piano music files (with very professional labels – why didn’t I ever think of that before?!), I began the much overdo task of reorganizing and weeding out my printed music files. (Turns out that posting about it did help spur me on to actually get it done!) It’s been seven years since I last went through and weeded out unused and duplicate music books, so it was time for another decluttering session! It’s so hard for me to get rid of music books that I might possibly want to consider using someday with some student for some particular purpose…but when the files are stuffed to the point that I get a tricep workout just trying to squeeze new books in or pull needed books out, I think it’s time to be a bit more ruthless with my “get rid of” stack. Here’s picture proof that this task has actually been accomplished – at least for the next seven years anyway!
The wonderful lateral file cabinet I acquired years ago that stores all of my printed piano music.
BEFORE: The top area is actually a shelf vs. a drawer and is a handy place for storing office supplies.
AFTER: Since I’m not doing complex mathematical calculations every day, I figured I no longer needed three compasses occupying space in the cabinet. Those, among many other miscellaneous items, were added to the garage sale pile.
Drawer One Before: This is where I keep all the method books and supplementary [mostly] contemporary piano music for students.
Drawer One During: Implementing the approach suggested by Jennifer Foxx in her Tidying Up webinar earlier this year, I pulled every folder out of the drawer and spread it out on the floor. Found a few books that had slid underneath the files in the drawer, too! I played through most of the supplementary music and tried to honestly evaluate the likelihood that I would use it in the future.
Drawer One After: Don’t the printed file labels look so much neater?! I uploaded the set I created for myself, so you can download, edit, and print a set of file labels for free if you’d like! I kept the organizational structure the same: method books first, organized by series, then categories for Technique, Rote Pieces, Improvisation, and then into the supplementary music, which I have arranged by level – Beginner, Elementary, Early Intermediate, Intermediate, Late Intermediate, and Advanced.
Drawer Two Before: This drawer houses all of the classical literature, organized by era, with one section in each era for individual composers and one section for collections that include multiple composers of that era. Following those folders are multi-era compilations organized by level. At the end is a section for arrangements and transcriptions of classical literature organized by level.
Drawer Two After: This drawer had quite a few duplicates, so I painstakingly added those to my “get rid of” stack, persuading myself that I’d rather get them into the hands of someone who can use them right away rather than them continuing to grow old in my file drawer.
Drawer Three Before: This drawer is home to my duet, ensemble, and Christmas music.
Drawer Three After: The timing worked out well because I was going through this drawer as I was selecting Christmas music for my students. That was perhaps the hardest genre for me to cull; I used to do a huge Christmas recital every year that was The Event of the year in our studio, so I had lots of music and lots of duplicates (since I often had students playing different arrangements from the same book). I managed to collect a stack of several dozen books and pieces of sheet music that I convinced myself I could live without, but I still have quite a bit left, as you can see!
Drawer Four Before: This bottom drawer includes all of my sacred/church music, wedding music, plus a variety of miscellaneous student memorabilia folders, and folders with original compositions and arrangements.
Drawer Four After: The sacred music is organized by level, then with some duets and ensemble and a few vocal selections. I scanned in the student memorabilia that I had saved in these files and used Evernote to organize it by tags for Student Artwork, Student Compositions, and Student Letters and Writings. Here’s a snapshot of what that looks like:
This was something I’d been wanting to do for quite a while, so it was nice to finally get it done. I continue to work toward digitizing most of my studio operations (like I did with all of our music theory worksheets earlier this year), so it helps to have a system in place that is easy to maintain. I’ve been scanning our Year-End Evaluations and organizing them in Evernote for a while and want to consistently do the same with our Interview and Evaluation forms. I just scan everything in as PDFs and then create a note, attach them, and tag them with the corresponding student’s name.
The Get Rid Of Stacks: One of the most rewarding aspects of completing this project was unexpected. I decided that after I finished each drawer, I would let my students go through the stacks of books and sheet music I decided to get rid of and pick out whatever they wanted. Some of them were in music heaven! One student in particular went home with an armload of books and has already started picking out new pieces to play.
The whole process took several weeks and many hours, but it was a delightful time of playing through lots of music and being reminded of the great resources available that I should be using with my students. Good thing they like learning new music, because I have a plethora of ideas in mind for each of them now!
In case you missed the link above, here’s a quick link to the Free File Folder Labels you can download, edit, and use in your studio:
[…] printed music, Natalie has been cleaning out and updating her own music files. Check out her before and after photos and get a free download of folder labels. (Natalie Weber | Music Matters […]