Keeping It All Together.

[Steve]

When you write a song, how do you store all the various parts? Lyrics, music, recordings. Do you get everything together and stick it in a folder? What?

I'm a bit of a slob when it comes to my songs. I have no idea where anything is any more! I've been trying to find some of my old recordings with the view of trying to improve them! Maybe kick me into writing mode again. But I can't find anything!

[thelevellers]

Lol, for lyrics I have a stack of paper on top of one of my CD racks, and of course any I have stuck on here are automatically stored!

Music wise it's all in a folder on my computer either in my 'real' folder, of actual recordings, or my 'GP5' folder, of guitar pro versions... And both those are within my 'guitar stuff' folder with all my tabs and general useful guitarness...

I'm a bit of a tidy freak when it comes to my computer, I find it impossible to use a computer without a nice clean and orderly desktop... My parents are worst for computer messiness, their desktop on their mac (which thankfully finally died recently) was so cluttered the icons were piled 2-3 thick!! :/

[Guitargodchris]

Lol Steve if you remember I had a muck up on my hard drive and was careless, now I have my work in a notebook, on my mp3 player stored as text files, on a spare hard drive and 3 of my lyrical works are written on my wall

Same as Rohan I keep my guitar recordings, guitar pro files and texts in one file and its password protected in a zip file as a backup also, lets say I took a few precautions after my hard drive crapped out last time

[Lazz]

I am a bit of a slob with everything except words and music which end up tidily occupying five incarnations of order.

Though there is a small starting pile of scraps and scribbles which doesn't count because it's still pretty slobby

Some get thrown, some get lost and some just disappear

Some eventually make their way into a computer file.

Some move on to the following:

Cardboard Box

Songs get turned into lead sheets.

I store those alphabetically in a box.

Small-Group Books

For performance, these lead-sheets get turned into charts for different instruments.

So I have four basic books: one for drums, one for bass, one in concert for guitar/piano, and another in Bb for tenor or trumpet.

Brown Envelopes

I also have arrangements for a larger ensemble.

For these I use large brown envelopes to hold sketches and outlines, lyrics, the full score, and a complete set of parts.

They sit on a bottom shelf, a small pile next to the cardboard box, in alphabet order, gathering dust as all proper archives should.

Large-Group Books

For performance, these arrangements are also contained in individual books or 'pads', as we call 'em.

So I have a drum pad, a bass pad, a guitar/keyboard pad, a trumpet/flugelhorn pad, a tenor/soprano pad, and a trombone pad.

There is also a special pad for me - to help keep tabs on what is supposed to be going on with everyone else.

For years I have kept meaning to set myself up with Sibelius or Finale in order to simplify the process of scoring, arranging and making parts.

But I get much pleasure from carefully drawing up a chart and writing everything out carefully by hand.

And I have always leaned a huge amount during those processes.

So I have been postponing that purchase - but one day...

Computer Files

When songs do get recorded now though - either for demo or release - one of the guys on the session who owns scoring software and is adept at using it will always send me a copy of the lead-sheet all smart in *.pdf format. So I have a file on my computer for each of these containing lyrics, a *.pdf lead-sheet, and an MP3.

Sometime in the future, I will publish these lead-sheets as a book.

[Nigel]

I always kept my lyrics written out in pads in various places over the years. But, when we upped and moved to Spain I searched round and put everything in an old briefcase ready for the move, along with some cd´s of recorded work.

Thank god I did! After nearly four years of living in Spain I stumbled across that old briefcase a few months ago and found all my work, recordings and scribblings going back over thirty years. And yes Steve it kick started my desire the write again.

Funny thing is, I can look at some lyrics I started but never finished some thirty years ago and the melody comes flooding back. Amazing, some of these songs I had completely forgotten about.

I also have worked stored in computer files, but computers have a way of crashing and never working again, to think that work could be lost would make me weep.

Anyway that´s my story.

[Steve]

I should really get myself organised a bit better. I have lost so much material to computer failure, but I still back up infrequently! My lyrics are scattered to the four corners of the attic in various, decomposing carrier bags!

[Jules]

A folder on my computer called "Songs" - Directly inside are the lyrics, and then there are two seperate folders called "Guitar Tabs" and "Bass Tabs" with the guitar/bass tabs to the song.

[Guitargodchris]

My Desktop

Look at my songwriting file on the right and its file name

[Steve]