Binder notebooks in several widths. Check. Tape and a three-hole punch. Check. Recycling box. Check. Super cool labeling tape machine. Missing! Crap. Sheets of (interim) file labels, and file folders? Check.

And a fourteen inch stack of orphan photocopies of arias, songs, IPA and translation sheets, research, and the odd program booklets sitting on top of my piano in my music studio.

This is a project I’ve been avoiding for months. After I taught a lesson yesterday, and was unable to locate which binder or file folder contained the music I wanted to give my student, I went mad. Time to have a tidy.

Because this occupation is tedious, I enlisted the White Album to keep me company. It turned out that I worked my way through the last half of the Beatles catalog in the process before I was done.

Before getting to the main task, all the opera scores had to be organized (by composer, and order of composition, and publication for multiple copies). Mixed in were several super-title cuing scores, and directing/production copies. These found a new home on another shelf because the regular scores were offended at their unkempt qualities.

How to divide and conquer? Clearly sorting by genre makes the most sense. But it is trickier than that. There are further divisions. So far, this is how things are going:

• Opera arias: past “unlikely to ever sing (Gilda, Juliette) again…”
• Opera arias: Mozart
• Opera arias, present/learning
• Opera arias to learn if I live long enough
• Oratorio arias: present/polishing
• Oratorio arias: feeling guilty that I’ve not learned
• Songs: Common Practice
• Songs: Romantic (by composer and language)
• Songs: 20thC (ditto)
• New compositions: 21stC by composer friends
• Audition pieces: opera and oratorio, ready to go
• Recital program: two copies/two binders (one for accompanist)
• Church/Wedding/Funeral: (ditto)
• Teaching hand-out: (vocalises, information, articles)
• Student pieces to hand out
• Three thick binders of lead sheets: (pop/rock)
• GoshGusMusic compositions (half-inch binder…may outgrow)

Should the reader think of something I missed, please speak up.

The piano pile contained copies of copies of copies. Much tossed into the recycle bin, as were dozens of cassette tapes. I was elated to find eight tapes my coach had recorded of accompaniments to entire opera roles for practice purposes. Lucia, La Traviata, Don Pasquale, and so on. Such generosity. New plan to get these transferred to disc before they degrade beyond usefulness.

As I go about flipping the house for summer cleaning, I will find the label machine, which will produce flouncy covers for the temporary file stickers. I’m thinking Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver should do.