As someone who used to organise a new folder of sheets before every gig, this app has changed my life.
However, I'm having a little trouble deciding exactly how to organise and categorise the sheets. I'd like to hear how others are getting on.
Specifically, I'd be interested in people like myself who work with many bands in many genres, who may sometimes need songs in a hurry from all directions.
What do you use the Collections tag for? Bands? Styles? Books? And do you use the Custom fields?
Thanks!
I think you really need to think through how you would use it during a gig. I think you want to be able to call up collections that will include pretty much any songs you would want at a particular gig, without too many extra songs that will make it more difficult to find the songs you want. Probably the most important think is to always have each song listed alphabetically in the way you would call it up (especially the first letter--for example, are you going to have songs starting with "the" or not, etc).
I guess, on first blush. You might want to create a collection for each band you play in. Include any songs you might possibly use in the band (I think you'd rather be over inclusive), but leave out those songs you would never use with that particular band. That way, if you are in the middle of a gig, you can alphabetically look for a particular song in that collection (or, I think do a search within the collection ?) and find any song quickly without sorting through songs that you would never play with that band.
Anyway, that is one possible way of starting the process.
To repeat something I said in a similar, earlier, thread; I work with a lot of different vocalists (who all do much the same repertoire, but not always the same key and/or arrangement). I found it best to name the file "whatever tune - key.pdf". I then use the 'Custom' field to further differentiate (in my case, usually by vocalist). When displayed on the tablet, I see:
whatever tune - key [vocalist]
That way, all the versions are together, e.g.;
My Romance - Am [Elena]
My Romance - Gm [Nicole]
My Romance - Am [SueK]
and so on.
The last one is a different arrangement to the other Am version.
This means I can quickly select by the vocalist (assuming it's someone I work with regularly) or by the key required.
My experience has been that finding a part is so quick, it doesn't really matter if you suddenly need something that's not in a setlist or collection. I have some 1,500 individual charts (amounting to the best part of 2,000 pages) and I can still find any one of them much quicker than my paper-based colleagues
.