Music cabinets

June 7, 2016 at 12:37 AM · I'm looking to get a book cart, like the ones they use at the public library to carry books back to the shelves. They're also called book trucks. They come in a variety of configurations, with flat or sloped shelves in various combinations. I think that would make a great solution for storing actively used sheet music.

I'm a furniture maker, so I will likely build my own. I think I could do it with a bit of the charming design features I've seen in some vintage trucks at my own public library.

(This is my first post here, by the way!)

June 7, 2016 at 01:04 AM · For a while, I used a 2-drawer legal file cabinet. The problem was, the folders were long enough (14 inches) but the scores and sheet music was too wide to fit without curling a little. Plus, the weight of all that music actually bent the metal support rods.

Right now I just use a heavy duty bookcase and have the music laying flat. My Dover scores are on there just like regular books, but everything else is flat. It works for now, but it ain't glamorous.

I have my music sorted by solo, chamber music, and orchestral parts. Then scores and Dover scores separate from them. I agree it gets tough to put music back correctly, but it's the best I can do right now.

June 7, 2016 at 11:03 AM · I'll repeat - with some slight modifications - something I wrote in a similar thread in 2010.

I can see the appeal of a music cabinet. But if you develop a really extensive collection of sheet music it will easily over-run any music cabinet.

I store my sheet music in magazine folders (or holders - I've seen both terms used for the same thing) that are about 3" wide. You can get cardboard or plastic ones at places like Staples. I store my Strad magazines the somewhat narrower plastic ones whose width accommodates 12 issues perfectly. I use the cardboard ones for the sheet music This works very well. You can label the folders. Then I divide my music into categories: technical material (eg scales, etudes) , concertos, sonatas, short pieces, duos, trios, quartets, etc. , orchestral parts, opera etc. Within each category I put the music in alphabetical order; eg one folder may be labeld "concertos A-G" etc. Oh, I also use manila file folders for loose sheets and very thin music, and then put those into the magazine folders/holders as well.

Occasionally there is a piece that defies easy categorization: where to put the Vitali Chaconne or the Sinding Suite? If it's an extended piece that would go on a recital program, I'd put it with sonatas; if an extended piece that is played with orchestra accompaniment it will go with concertos. Then there is the occasional old oversize music. I'll stand these up in-between the folders. I have a rather extensive collection of sheet music at this point - more than 5 to 6 yards worth! This system really works quite well.

I must admit though, that despite my best efforts, a particular piece of music will occasionally somehow vanish into thin air. This can sometimes be chalked up to absent-minded mis-filing. But I also suspect certain cosmic anomalies at play: I think that there may be an intermittent interface with one or more of the multiverses that are floating around which sometimes snatches things from my world. A kind of 'twilighty thing with the zone'. If my theory is correct, someone in another dimension is enjoying some of my sheet music - and some lost keys as well!

June 7, 2016 at 11:25 AM ·

June 7, 2016 at 01:23 PM · hi Lydia, Laurie wrote a blog on how she solved her music storage problems a few years ago:

http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20138/14905/

June 7, 2016 at 02:11 PM · Hi Lydia,

I think it cost me $30, ten years ago, at the local Goodwill, for a 3' X 6' X 1' bookcase that pretty well holds my 18 cubic feet of violin, viola, and cello sheet music in 18 categories (actually 17 categories, because my "violin solos" take 2 shelf spaces). 2 extra cubic feet of piano trio music - I gave that to our pianist, she's 20 years younger than we (her 2 string players) so that probably will work (our previous pianist, a retired pro, was 20 years older than we are and she left us her collection).

I know you don't want to use flat storage, but it's not so bad if you can categorize the stacks. On one wall I have a "desk" top that is a full-size door blank supported on shelves that holds a mess of related music stuff, but under the windows on the opposite wall, right next to my playing space is another 6-foot long 3-level bookcase that holds my "current music" and rosin & wiping cloth and scrubbie. At my age all my practicing is done sitting down - so it is easy to grab from my "current" pile.

Andy

March 11, 2017 at 09:29 PM · So I never did get around to buying a cabinet, and with my recent acquisition of an increasing amount of chamber music, as well as a growing collection of orchestral scores, I now have about 12 linear feet of music that I need to store (measured as if they were all upright on a bookcase-shelf), and my guess is that this will probably grow by at least a foot a year, given the size of the score collections.

My collection previously lived in IKEA shelves that buckled under the weight. What will be sturdy enough to hold dense music?

March 11, 2017 at 10:16 PM · DIY!! This is the kind of thing I make for myself. Basically you want something with a lot of vertical dividers so that your music does not sag as it is stored vertically. I have made a lot of my own furniture because, frankly, good furniture is expensive. But maybe you do not have a wood shop at home, or maybe (equally likely) you just don't have time.

The problem with IKEA shelves is that very often they are made of medium density fiberboard (MDF) or particle board with a melamine coating. They look hard and sturdy, but they sag under load. You need something made of plywood. Look at the unfinished edge of the sides and shelves to make sure. You might consider a kitchen cabinet from Lowes but you'd need to check the dimensions and make absolutely sure that the construction is plywood and hardwood. Sometimes you can find used cabinets at your local Habitat Restore, or you can call a local kitchen contractor and ask them if they ever recover the cabinets when the demolish a kitchen. When I had my kitchen redone, we saved a couple of cabinets which got moved to the laundry room.

The other thing you can do is buy the IKEA or Goodwill shelves -- but then fortify them with sturdy cleats (along the back, underneath each shelf), and even a wooden faceframe. Just buy poplar or even clear pine 1x2 from Lowes and then you just need a cordless drill/driver, an ordinary hand saw, and some fasteners. To affix a face frame I would use finish screws which are typically driven by a No. 1 square drive bit. Remember that affixing cleats and a faceframe will decrease the available shelf dimensions. If the "weak link" of a set of cheap shelves is the back (sometimes made of stuff that feels like plastic-coated cardboard), you can measure the dimensions of the back and have a piece of plywood cut for you at Lowes and then screw that on (1/2" B/C pine would be very robust) .

I'd also say that you could do to organize your music. Now, I totally realize how condescending that sounds, so please hear me out. Some people don't organize their music because there's no one "best" way to do it so that you can browse along different dimensions (say, instrumentation or composers or genre). But there is a way, which I think may appeal to your sensibilities as an IT professional. What I have done is simply number every item sequentially and put all of that into a Google spreadsheet with the item number in the first column. Then I have composer, editor/edition/publisher info, instrumentation, title of work, and of course that's searchable. If I want to browse all my piano trios, I can do that just by sorting according to instrumentation, etc. It's basically a crude database. Because each item is numbered, it doesn't matter how they're stored. That can be basically random. I do my browsing in the spreadsheet and then I can pull things by number, and easily refile them without any fuss. For example the Beethoven Romances is filed under title = romances, composer = Beethoven, edition = Peters, genre = classical, instrumentation = violin & piano, comments = performed G major op 40 in November 2016, daughter performed F major op 50 in June 2015.

March 12, 2017 at 12:22 AM · I separate categories with boards that protude that can be labeled, as in many music stores.

March 12, 2017 at 12:54 AM · I just did this. We had stored sheet music in hanging field and had the same problems mentioned above. Plus, I'm messy by nature and won't maintain a storage solution unless it's easy.

I ended up co-opting a section of built-in bookshelves (solid wood, not particle board) and buying a bunch of clear plastic magazine files on eBay. I've also got a google doc cataloging all our music, lest I accidentally buy the same thing twice during an Urtext sale at Sheet Music Plus. (It happens.) I store by type/ensemble/chronology. It looks neat, is easy to use, and seems to protect the music. For active music I have a file that sits in the music room and I pull out pieces and put them on the stand or on the table that I use for storing my violin. This system can expand more or less indefinitely as we have tons of built-in bookcases. Should be easy enough to replicate with sturdy stand-alone shelves. If you go this way, be sure to order the right size and spring for sturdy ones.

March 12, 2017 at 01:26 AM · Sadly I have no DIY-oriented skills. If I did, I would be very dangerous. :-)

(All of my making-stuff skills are confined to wiring up chips on a breadboard, and Lego.)

March 12, 2017 at 01:48 PM · My 'active music' just stays in the tote bag that I take to my lessons, except for my orchestra music which stays in my viola case. I'm not capable of working on that many different things simultaneously anyway.

March 13, 2017 at 10:49 PM · Mark, nice idea on the book cart. Make the shelves big enough to hold the magazine holders and then put a solid piece of wood on top to use as a desk.