Recently I really needed a new way to organize my music library.

I used to have them all lined up on a bookshelf. That worked alright for awhile – like until someone grabbed a few books to play from. Then they all would start leaning and falling over. Plus it never really looked very nice anyway, with the mixture of spiral bound books and sheet music and old books with falling-apart spines. And I would initially try to organize them by composer, but they would inevitably get all out of order.

So next I found a large, cute basket at Walmart, and had it in my living room next to the piano. My music books fit perfectly and it was easy to grab a book and put it back in the right place without them getting all disorganized. But I quickly outgrew that! And inevitably the organization still went right out the window.

Here is my most recent way of organization, and I quite like it!

First I bought a nice shelf to use. Then I went to Ikea and bought a whole bunch of their cardboard magazine holders (they are really inexpensive, and look nice!). I organized all my music by composer and labeled each magazine holder and put them on the shelf. It looks nice, plus it’s easy to pull out the needed music and keep them all in order.

The only problem is that my two-year-old loves to pull the little labels out and bring them to me (luckily I found all but one for this photo!)

How do YOU keep your music or teaching materials organized? Any fun ideas to share?

Check out some more studio organization ideas in our “Helpful Resources” section.