[dallaskruse]

I just downloaded and started playing with the program the other day and wanted to get some tips and opinions on song/group organization before I get too far in.

I play in 3 bands, and that can be a mix of different instruments and parts. I was a little surprised when importing a song there wasn't a metadat field for "part" or "instrument", but I assume I will just need to use the custom field for that? If so, I take it things like "Trumpet 1", "Trumpet 2", "Flugelhorn" would be sufficient.. or would you recommend some other way? I may have 3 versions of a single song, 1 for each instrument - should I be using different filenames for them (perhaps signifying the instrument, like "SongTitle - Trumpet1.pdf"?

next - speaking of the Custom field - i used the "+" to add a value, but I had a typo. I couldn't find any type of "list editor" to edit the values.. the "X" deleted everything in the list, and the "+" added a new value, but didn't see anything to edit existing ones - is it somewhere that I just haven't found?

Back to organization - 2 of the bands are pretty simple - each month we get a set of new songs that we'll play for the next concert so I assume I'll just import them and then make a setlist? The 3rd band we have different types of music (jazz, dixieland, concert) which I'd want to group by (he may say 'next rehearsal we'll work on the dixieland stuff', so I'd want a quick way to just bring up all those pieces) and then for performances we'll pick a subset to play which I assume is where a setlist will come in?

Thanks for any tips and tricks! Like I said I just started playing with the program yesterday, and I won't have a bunch of music to import until later this week when I will get a more "real" feel for it, but figured I'd ask up-front based on my quick usage.

I'm in the same position as you.

When I write my charts in Finale, I print them with the part name ... so it would be "Blackbird (G) - Trumpet 1"

That helps me organize my tablets. We have 6 tablets...1 for each musicians and only keep the specific part on each tablet.