Creating a Library for Your Sheet Music

Hi everyone,

In today's post I'm going to be talking about creating a library for your sheet music, so then that way you know where everything is and you know exactly where to look.

This is a recent addition to my own personal practice/ recording space, and I've organised it in a way so I know where everything is. Also, another really nice thing is about this book shelf is that I have now got room to expand my own personal sheet music collection.

I'm going to explain how I've sorted out my sheet music shelves from top to bottom.

Top Shelf

On the top shelf is a small amount of violin/ vocal/ piano sheet music, Trevor Wye Practice Books, compilations of easy to read sheet music, flute tutor methods such as 'A New Tune a Day' and 'Abracadabra', various scales and sight reading books. I also have a small amount of music literature and language books on this shelf.

Second Shelf

This shelf contains all of my flute study books, and these range from compilations of flute studies to flute studies by individual composers such as Andersen, Moyse and Gariboldi. I've also got my portable Bluetooth speaker on this shelf, as it comes in handy for when I want to use it with the TomPlay app.

Third Shelf

This shelf contains all of my flute pieces, and these range from easy to intermediate compilation books, Hal Leonard classic series and the Classical Players series, Disney, and also works by composers such as Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Chopin to name a few.

Bottom Shelf

This shelf contains a bit of mixture as it has the books for Piccolo practice, manuscript paper, Orchestral Excerpts, past exam material, and Music Theory books. There's also a small container that holds all of my cleaning essentials for my flute.

I love how easy it is for me for find exactly what it is that I'm looking for within my own personal sheet music collection, and this is with a small space.

If you are struggling to organise your sheet music try and see if you find a small space that would be suitable for organising your sheet music. It could even be just using a shelf or two, and use magazine files to help you to categorise your collection or small book shelf with the correct height and depth. The height of my shelves are the size of A4 plus one inch with a depth of 30cm to give you an idea on what you may need.

If you are learning multiple instruments you may want to do something similar to what have, but dedicate a shelf to each instrument to keep everything together.

This is just what I have decided to do with my own personal sheet music collection, and I know not everyone has a spare area to keep their sheet music organised. I've always tried to have some sort of organisation system in place, as I literally had a small square shelf in my other bedroom and I had to use magazine files to sort it to the best of my ability. I had to keep some of it in under bed boxes, as I had no room for all of it.

If you do want to organise your sheet music, but you're not sure then just start with a small space (if possible), and then take it from there. I would also recommend doing this, as it will also keep your sheet music in good condition.