Best way of storing and keeping music scores

OK, this isn’t really a music practice or performance question, but still closely related to it

How do you store your music scores?

Standing up like books in a bookshelf?
I like to keep them that way but:
a.) It can be quite difficult to find what you want as they don’t have a spine with the title on them unless the score has sufficient pages to justify that
b.) I am worried about damage to the scores as most of them tend to “tilt” to one side. They are don’t have the same “foot print” to stand up on their own accord as books do
c.) You’ll always have the odd one out which has a taller hard back cover than the clearance in your shelves

Lying down on top each other (stacked up)?
a.) It can be just as difficult to find scores as in the method above
b.) Always frustrating if the score you want is at the bottom of the stack and you have to take of a lot of scores first to get to it, then put them back again
c.) Easy to damage very thin/small scores that might be lurking in between other scores when you are pulling them out of the stack (or trying to fit one back in)

Do you ever put protective film around the outside covers of your score? I wondering if I should do that with some of my Peeters scores as I can see the covers wearing out or getting damaged easily.

How do you deal with older scores where the binding becomes lose and pages start falling out? How to limit damage in storage and every day use to those?

Please share your thoughts

Hello sk8london,

I use photocopies from my books or printed sheets from imslp,
in plastic pokets like this : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tiger-transparent-punched-pockets-sleeves/dp/B005T3M0RO/ref=pd_sim_office_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0R2VDPDA23ZZMYEHBYFY
(Pokets contains only one piece, and photocopies are sticked with scotch tape.)

I use big binders ( like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rybond-Lever-Arch-Files-Quality/dp/B00CULAFPW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408459652&sr=8-2&keywords=binders,

Binder are classified by period or country, and only contain the pieces I can play.
It's easy and fast to find one music piece, and my old books stay longer in the bookshelf.

Mine are mostly standing up. That is mainly piano music.

My organ music is very often in PDF form from IMSLP or similar. I have already purchased a large monitor but it is not installed over my keyboards yet. I need a round tuit

The time-honoured way is to use a chest of drawers. These can be quite tall but with shallow drawers often with a folding front, like this:



Regards,

I have my scores in 3 versions.
(1) Old music score books, worn out, and put by a professional book binder in new covers.
(2) The complete Bach organ works, nine volumes, Kalmus Classic Edition, which are ring binders.
I store both (1) and (2) flat in a cup board. Flat because in that way their condition remain best.

(3) The majority of my scores are PDF prints found on the net (mainly IMSLP) or copied from my own books.
My vision is not good anymore, so I print them out in landscape format with mostly just 3 bars per page, connected with tape, and put on my music stand with max. 4 pages wide.
I store them flat in a box with a (clothed) lid on a hinge which is the top of my organ bench.
All these PDF scores, thus with a max. width of 4 pages A4 landscape, easily fit in the topbox in my organ bench. The box is just 3.5cm high, but you will need LOTS of these scores to fill that.

It´s extremely easy, I just stand up from my organ, open the lid and fix it, and browsing through the heap to find the proper score proves easy.

And then, because I mainly use printed copies, MANY can be put on my music stand and stay there. So usually, I shift them around on the music stand itself.

I have made a music stand from glass plates, so because you can see through it does not seem bulky, over the full with of the (3) manuals stack. And as I mostly use just 2 manuals, I slide the music stand and pull it to me until it fully covers the 3rd manual, which makes reading the score details a lot easier.
Finally then, again for reading purposes, I have put a row of 4 fluorescent tubes on the ceiling, just over my head, and that gives LOTS of light. I could switch some off, but I don´t .

I¨m very comfortable with the use and storage of my scores.

Ernst

I store all my single sheets and photocopies in an antique music cabinet which has shelves not drawers

All my albums are stored in magazine holders available from good high street office stationers.Each holder takes approximately 18 albums

These all fit very neatly into a modern oak cabinet with 11 holders in the width with a further 2 sideways in front of them.
Whilst it is not possible to see what the titles are, I store them in sequences e.g. Hal Leonard series, Bill Irwin series, Classic composers, Organextravaganza etc

That's about 200 albums!.

The cabinet is available in the UK from oakfurnituresolutions.co.uk . It is a Sherwood oak 2 door cabinet priced at 165.54 UK pounds

I hope this is of help

regards

Derek

Two years ago I invested in two black IKEA Billy book cases, the deep version. I puchased some extra shelves (found in the discount section) and pins to hold them.

The shelves are about 3 to 4 inches apart. I have three stacks per shelf (in width), labelled by composer.

Last year I added a top unit (less deep), for my regular music books, and some hymnals that I don't use that often. This year I purchased glass panel doors, to keep the dust out, which looks great. (and some lights...)

My next plan is to add a 'drawer-shelf', and mount it just under the fixed middle shelf. I would pull this shelf out, take a stack of music, and use this 'pull-out' shelf to browse through the sheet music. (Maybe next year...).

Hope that this gives an idea. It requires some money but it is well-worth it. I am spreading the costs...

Frank

As for me they are stacked up, since I'm very seldom looking at them.

When I need a piece, I usually get all the pile out of the shelf, scan it and read it on the organ's 24" screen, using MusicReader. It can also happen I re-write them under MuseScore, in case the pdf is not convenient - currently the case for Haendel's 11th concerto, which version for solo organ I had in a landscape format.