Organizing your Music Books

How do your organize your library of music books?  About a month ago, I purchased a new bookshelf (see photo) for my music, because most of my books were still in boxes with no place to go since our move to our new apartment.  In just a few hours, I managed to re-organize all my music books, and I’m proud to say I can actually find stuff I’m looking for when I need it!

Here’s how I organize my books:

I divide my music into two major categories:

1. Student-level repertoire
2. Advanced repertoire

Within the above categories, I divide my books further into the following categories:

• Sheet music — organized by level (e.g., early elementary, late intermediate, etc.).
• Classical music — alphabetized by composer last name.
• Classical Anthologies — books that contain pieces by a number of different composers.  When possible, I organize these books chronologically (i.e., by music period).
• Sacred music — books of hymn arrangements.

I also have a few other categories:

• Method Books — such as Alfred, Faber, etc., organized by method series and then by level.
• Technique – such as Finger Power, Dozen A Day, Hanon exercises, etc.
• Theory — such as Notespellers, books of theory worksheets, etc.

How do you organize your music library?

Joy is a pianist, piano teacher, and graduate student earning her Master's in Piano Pedagogy and Performance. She has been teaching piano for five years. She enjoys blogging about her teaching experiences at colorinmypiano.com.

Joy has blogged 259 posts here.

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