organizing your cd collection or Vinyl

[Noj]

My collection is still of the size that I have only bought one cd twice. I can remember nearly all of them! (1100 approx)

I recently got my whole collection in alphabetical order, all into a row of shelving units. It makes it so much easier to find anything I'm looking for--except when something gets put back wrong! I left Tad Dameron and Fats Navarro out and my niece "put it away for me." Damned if that thing wasn't stuck in the Donald Byrd section, and it took me days before I could find it. I thought I'd accidentally sold it or something.

[JohnS]

By label for those labels I particularly collect, Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, PJ, Contemporay, then alphabetically. Miles, Monk, Mulligan and Murray are filed individually. The remainder are a bit of a mess, 50's and 60s in the top half of the cupboard, more modern on the lower half. It helps to have a good memory. And then there's the pile on the floor.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

You guys are all lightweights. Everyone knows that you organize by obi color - pink, blue, yellow, red......pink, blue, yellow, red!!!!

[Man with the Golden Arm]

R

O

Y

G

B

V

[Noj]

That color shit is SO out. I arrange by the Zodiac sign of the producer.

[Ron S]

You guys are such morons--it's so incredibly easy to organize an entire jazz collection. I don't know why you make it so friggin' complicated.

All you do is put your Herb Alpert first, followed by your Pete Fountain, your Al Hirt, and your Boots Randolph. I personally keep all my Kenny G separate for easier access.

[gslade]

Somehow, organization does not seem to fit in the world of jazz (unless you are Wynton)

Mine are filed emotionally

[catesta]

I'm just happy to get most of them off the floor and on shelves.

[sjarrell]

That color shit is SO out.  I arrange by the Zodiac sign of the producer.

[rostasi]

My question isn't so much an organizing question

as it is just simply a naming question.

There are some sides that have no clear leader of the date.

If you were to add the following disc, for example, to your

music player (or your library), would you use Thad Jones's name

'cause he's listed first, or would you use Teddy Charles

'cause he's the director or would you just use "Various Artists"

(or some other creative variant)?

[7/4]

My question isn't so much an organizing question

as it is just simply a naming question.

There are some sides that have no clear leader of the date.

If you were to add the following disc, for example, to your

music player (or your library), would you use Thad Jones's name

'cause he's listed first, or would you use Teddy Charles

'cause he's the director or would you just use "Various Artists"

(or some other creative variant)?

If I have a bunch of albums by one of those guys, I'd just stick it in with them. Burrell 'n' Coltrane goes with the Trane discs.

[rostasi]

If I have a bunch of albums by one of those guys, I'd just stick it in with them. Burrell 'n' Coltrane goes with the Trane discs.

OK, that's good to know for library filing. For music player listings, the CDDB (database) shows the title under Teddy Charles,

so I'm going with that in iTunes...but I come across this pretty often with no collective band names -

just listings of individual players. Hmmm...

[Hot Ptah]

I do it alphabetically, then I try to keep it chronological within a particular artist.

During the years that online jazz forums have existed, my collection has increased substantially--hmmmmm, are the two related?

So I don't keep up with the chronological arrangement within an artist as well anymore. My philosophy on that is one that we studied for a semester in college. It is the "Oh Well What The Hell" school of thought.

Likewise, if there is a CD with four co-leaders on it, I adopt the philosophical system that oddly, we did not study in college--the "Just Shove It Anywhere Because You Don't Listen To Most of These CDs Hardly At All Anyway" school of thought.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

you could do like the japanese stores:

by instrument that is played by the leader of the date then alphabetically by first name, with the releases then alphabetical under that.

so '@ Birdland' is in the section under "drums" but is at the beginning with "Art" and so on...

[rostasi]

Well, my stuff is all in random order anyway.

I guess my question really arose when I stuck in the copy

of Olio in my computer and it came up in iTunes under "Teddy Charles" -

someone who's further behind on the list printed on the cover and spine

of the disc, so it got me thinkin', "Who is this disc really by and how do I

show that in my music playing software?"

So, it's less to do, as I said, with library filing - just "who leads this date anyway?"

kind of question...

OK, nevermind...

[street singer]

My question isn't so much an organizing question

as it is just simply a naming question.

There are some sides that have no clear leader of the date.

If you were to add the following disc, for example, to your

music player (or your library), would you use Thad Jones's name

'cause he's listed first, or would you use Teddy Charles

'cause he's the director or would you just use "Various Artists"

(or some other creative variant)?

I organize all my discs alphabetically by artist (last name first, ofcourse). For a disc such as 'Olio', with no clear leader... That would go under 'V' for 'Various Artists'. I've found it to be the easiest solution.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

My question isn't so much an organizing question

as it is just simply a naming question.

There are some sides that have no clear leader of the date.

If you were to add the following disc, for example, to your

music player (or your library), would you use Thad Jones's name

'cause he's listed first, or would you use Teddy Charles

'cause he's the director or would you just use "Various Artists"

(or some other creative variant)?

I vary the records I have that are like that. For example, sometimes "ESPM the reunion: Live at Akhbar Hall" is snuggling between "Blowin' the blues away" and "The Charles Earland organ summit" (which is another moveable one with McGriff, JH Smith and Dr Lonnie); sometimes it's cuching up beside Mel Sparks' "I'm a gittar player"; other times it's dividing its affections between Teddy Edwards and Houston Person's "Horn to horn" and "Close encounters" (if those CDs aren't on duty in the Teddy Edwards section) or if they are, between "Christmas with Houston Person" and "Personified"; and sometimes it's elbowing its way between Idris Muhammad's "My turn" and "Right now".

This might seem daft but it's actually moderately helpful. I only do it for Soul Jazz, not for any of the other kinds of music I collect. And it's because I have about 36 feet of Soul Jazz CDs. I keep some spaces in the shelves so I'm not faced with having to shuffle all 36 feet along when I buy a Cannonball Adderley CD. But those spaces aren't necessarily in the right places to accomodate new CDs easily. Moving one or two from here to there gets around that problem. Of course, from time to time I DO need to shuffle the whole lot along, to create more extra spaces. But it doesn't have to happen nearly as often.

The general rule is, chronological recording dates by alphabetical artists by type of music. Frankly, when I want to listen to Mbalax, I don't want to wade through tons of other stuff to find something I fancy playing. Ditto Blues, Gospel, Sermons, R&B, Swing, Hip Hop etc etc.

MG

[clifford_thornton]

If I had Olio, I would put it with Teddy Charles LPs (I keep Collaboration West in that area, for example).

My jazz LPs are organized contextually, for the most part. That can be who's played with whom; by country; by instrumental approach - whatever.

Mingus and his regular companions are grouped together.

Cecil, Sunny, Lyons and Silva are together.

New Haven musicians (and Leo Smith) are together.

Paul Flaherty and Louis Armfield are together.

European records are by country (as with my ethnic albums), and that's fairly geographically accurate: French --> Swiss --> German --> Belgian --> Dutch , etc. Within country, they're grouped contextually.

The rock records are alphabetical by artist and chronological by album, mostly because I don't collect rock or give much of a shit. Same with the few classical records I have.

[jbs-tom]

... i have also a random system but well organized

each record got his own number starting with one and then going up, up, up. so never a problem with sorting over an over again.

this number is on a poly sleeve and i make a photo of each record to file it in a great program for music collection: iphoto by apple ! (actually not designed for record collecting of course)

you can use it really great as a database, you can search for the index number, the artists the title etc., you can also give each record a key word like blue note or female vocal jazz or what ever.

you can put lots of infos in just one field like the price you paid, the value and so on.

really great is also when you have a ipod with photo function like a small ipod nano, you can have your collection with you all the time !

and a last great event is, when you browse through your records all mixed up it brings some jewels up again you maybe have forgotten already ....

enjoy