How do you organize your sing-along song book?
November 28, 2010 2:43 PM Subscribe
How do you organize your sing-along song book?
So for camping trips and back yard barbeques (really any event that has a mixture of alcohol and fire) we usually crack out the guitars and sing-along songbooks.
Right now the song book is just one super long MS Word document that's been added to over the years. What my anal retentive side would like is a better way to organize this so that I can easily create an index by Artist and an index by Song Title, ordered alphabetically.
The Word document dutifully uses [Song Title] and [Artist] custom header styles, but this doesn't really help my alphabetical order predicament.
How do the super-organized manage their song books?
So for camping trips and back yard barbeques (really any event that has a mixture of alcohol and fire) we usually crack out the guitars and sing-along songbooks.
Right now the song book is just one super long MS Word document that's been added to over the years. What my anal retentive side would like is a better way to organize this so that I can easily create an index by Artist and an index by Song Title, ordered alphabetically.
The Word document dutifully uses [Song Title] and [Artist] custom header styles, but this doesn't really help my alphabetical order predicament.
How do the super-organized manage their song books?
Best answer: Word has functions for creating an index for you. I don't have any version of Word right now so I can't say if this is easy or hard.
Version 2002
Version 2007
A more expensive option if you get sick of doing it yourself is to get the book Rise Up Singing. My mom and her folk music buddies love this book as it has every song imaginable with chords.
posted by amethysts at 3:45 PM on November 28, 2010
Version 2002
Version 2007
A more expensive option if you get sick of doing it yourself is to get the book Rise Up Singing. My mom and her folk music buddies love this book as it has every song imaginable with chords.
posted by amethysts at 3:45 PM on November 28, 2010
I group mine in a 3-ring binder by tuning (banjo) because that's kind of how I remember the songs, and I tend to play all the similar tuning songs at the same time anyway. I don't have much use for an index of any sort, even though my organizational compulsion wants one. I find that I never use it anyway, I just idly flip through looking for something that catches my fancy.
I suppose if you ever looked up music for a particular song you were trying to find, an index would be nice. I never do that, so keeping an index up to date was more trouble than it was worth.
posted by ctmf at 4:02 PM on November 28, 2010
I suppose if you ever looked up music for a particular song you were trying to find, an index would be nice. I never do that, so keeping an index up to date was more trouble than it was worth.
posted by ctmf at 4:02 PM on November 28, 2010
Best answer: This is a better link if you have Word 2003.
posted by amethysts at 4:57 PM on November 28, 2010
posted by amethysts at 4:57 PM on November 28, 2010
An index is a great thing for social singing. Being able to pull the index from the larger book and pass it around - or have multiple copies in sheet protectors to pull out and share - is a great idea. People have a much easier time perusing a list and saying "Oh, I know that one and that one!" than they do searching their memory to identify songs they know and you also might know.
So make sure your title index and artist indexes - what casual/fun singers are going to care about - are easy to share, even when you're staring down at the binder. People can pass the extras around and be picking out their next requests while you are in the middle of another song. Fellow musicians might appreciate a key index, but really only banjoists and fiddlers are going to care a lot about that. I've also seen indexes by era (60s, 70s, 80s) and genre (rock, folk, country).
posted by Miko at 8:54 PM on November 28, 2010
So make sure your title index and artist indexes - what casual/fun singers are going to care about - are easy to share, even when you're staring down at the binder. People can pass the extras around and be picking out their next requests while you are in the middle of another song. Fellow musicians might appreciate a key index, but really only banjoists and fiddlers are going to care a lot about that. I've also seen indexes by era (60s, 70s, 80s) and genre (rock, folk, country).
posted by Miko at 8:54 PM on November 28, 2010
You might also think of an index by first line--many people don't know the titles of songs (especially traditional folk songs) but know the first line.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:28 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:28 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Six months later, I've finally come around to finding time to work out the suggestions above. A day before the long weekend barbeque fest! (Hooray procrastination!)
The MS Word indexing function is working out great. What I did was create two index entries for each song.
Song Title:[Song Title] ([Artist Name])
Artist:[Artist Name]:[Song Title]
Note that the first entry has two tiers while the second entry has three tiers. This creates the following index:
posted by thisisnotbruce at 6:07 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]
The MS Word indexing function is working out great. What I did was create two index entries for each song.
Song Title:[Song Title] ([Artist Name])
Artist:[Artist Name]:[Song Title]
Note that the first entry has two tiers while the second entry has three tiers. This creates the following index:
- Artist
- Bob Dylan
- Blowin' in the Wind, 2
- Knockin' on Heaven's Door, 4
- Don McLean
- American Pie, 3
- Song Title
- American Pie (Don McLean), 3
- Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan), 2
- Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan), 4
posted by thisisnotbruce at 6:07 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]
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* make a spreadsheet just having all the song listings, page numbers, etc. Sort it each way and paste it in to the document! Consider adding the song key as well!
posted by gregglind at 3:31 PM on November 28, 2010 [1 favorite]