thanks to the recent posts from oregonpapa, sbank and trytone.
@Trytone - nice website and words of experience.
From your post and the other suggestions here, I found I do have a number of categories set up and then alphabetical within those categories. One issue is the shelving is in three different rooms. Also if I fill a row, then discover more lps, that belong there; (this keeps happening) how do you fit them in. Only one way. Everything needs to be shifted along physically. Very different from digital files. Click, click, click you are done !
I am about to re-engage this project again and it seems more intimidating now, than when I started it last spring. Maybe because they are off the floor with no wife looking over my shoulder, or maybe because they are now staring at me from the wall. My handwriting on the temporary painters tape labels looks like gibberish to me now.
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Here is thread synopsis so far, from Audiogoneers, by order of post entry. 17 entries so far.
1 - melm
In my own case it is by label (+ one section for misc. labels), and then by approx. date of composition: baroque, classical, romantic, modern, etc. I keep vocal, opera separate. If I had fewer records it would just be by date of composition.
2 - 77jovian
I do it a little differently. First, by composer, then symphonies, then major works (requiems, for example), then piano concertos, then other concertos by instrument, then sonatas by instrument, then chamber music and then smaller works. I am intrigued by Melm’s chronological organization, as it’s fun to think of a work in the context of what part of a composer’s life a work appeared. Now that I think of it, in my non-classical collection, I organize by artist chronologically. The main consideration, I think, is pick a system that will allow you to find what you’re looking for. That’s especially challenging for classical, where one recording may contain works by several composers.
3 - czarivey
I first put together label ->performing artist->title(consisting of composer and name of piece or opus). Most of my Deutsche Grammophon records start with "K" -- Kubelik, Karajan and some of them with "B" Bohm :-)
4 - ebm
Label than a to z i have over 5 thousand.
5 - elee
Composer, composition, Label, artist.
Opera in separate section, as does vocal centered around 1 artist
Records w/ various composers w/ 1 artist, I put in so called Collection section. So say Van Cliburn plays romantic Favorites goes under V.
Repeat works or more than 1 composition by the same artist then goes chronologically based on release date w/in the label. So-
Beethoven Symphonies -Karajan 1st cycle goes before 2nd cycle.
Or, La Boheme on Decca (London) - Mono Tebaldi goes before Stereo Tebaldi goes before Freni, Pavarotti.
6 - newbee
I have my music divided into four groups, Orchestral, Vocal, Chamber, and solo (or two) piano music. In each group I sub-divide as needed for what ever is appropriate to me, for example usually by composer/performer/label, but for solo piano I have two seperate sub groups, one for performers (i.e. I love Moravec so I have all of his music filed under his name) but more often filed by composer and I have them filed in the order of my personal performance preference.
To me it makes sense for you, having such a large collection to sort through, would be just to file them by composer. Then as you become more familiar with the actual recordings themselves where/how you want to file them should become evident.
7 - almarg
What I’ve done is to first sort into the following categories, and then within each category by composer, or by the composer of either the major work or the work that is of greatest interest to me in the case of recordings having works by multiple composers. One reason I chose this methodology is simply that in my case it happens to work out nicely with respect to the available shelving. The categories are:
-- Analog mastered recordings on labels which usually provide exceptionally good sound quality (e.g., Astrée, Harmonia Mundi, Chesky, Wilson Audio, Pierre Verany, some EMI, RCA Japan, etc.).
8 - bdp24
I have far more "Classical" (the term originally identified a time period and composition form or style, approximately the mid-18th century through almost mid-19th, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. You can see TV clips from the 1950s, in which what is now called Classical was then referred to as "serious"---as opposed to Pop---or "longhair"---a pre-Beatles term!---music) CDs than LPs, both organized the same: Alphabetically by composer, then alpha by composition title (The Rite of Spring, for instance) or form (concerto, sonata, symphony, etc.), then alpha by conductor (no offense to orchestra members implicate!). Collections are at the end, also alpha by either the performer (if appropriate) or period (Baroque, say). After the music, I have the overtly audiophile label recordings (Reference, Sheffield, Wilson) and audiophile re-issue label pressings (Chesky, Classic Records), alpha then numeric
9 - pryso
One local friend has nearly 10,000 LPs and well over half are classical. He organizes his alphabetically by label and then by serial number. That would be useless for me but seems to work fine for him. So I was a little surprised to see others here utilize similar systems.
All of my approximately 3,000 LPs are alphabetical, first by musical category, then by artist. The exception is within classical where they are by composer. Within composer I group by type - concerto, symphony, etc. This has proven to be the simplest system and so works for me.
10 - johnnyb53
I organize by composer’s birthday. That way I have a progression that goes by music period *and* composer simultaneously--renaissance, baroque, rococo, classical, romantic, impressionist, 20th century, and contemporary.
The only problem is the collections that might have multiple composers or even artists as well. For those I have a separate block of albums generally organized alphabetically by primary artist.
11 - paulparsons
Yes, definitely organize by birth year of the composer. That way you can get a visual feel of the progression of centuries of music, and understand which composers wrote during the same period, and which ones influenced those who were born later. Here is the way classical.net broadly divides things:
Medieval - 11th though 14th Centuries
Early Renaissance - 15th Century
High Renaissance - 16th Century
Early Baroque - Late 16th and 17th Centuries
High Baroque - Late 17th and Early 18th Centuries
Classical/Romantic - Late 18th Century
Romantic - Early 19th Century
Romantic/Modern - Late 19th Century
Modern - 20th Century
In each composer section, I subdivide by opus numbers, chronologically. When that is not feasible, I keep all the symphonies of that composer together, all his string quartets together, and so on.
If you have a violin record with four composers on it, what do you do then? You can either put it in with your favorite composer on the LP, or you can have a section of records at the end or beginning of your shelving devoted to particular instruments. Piano, clarinet, guitar, what have you.
Operas you can have in a separate section or not.
Filing alphabetically is the lazy man’s way, essentially pointless except for convenience. Is there really any sense in having Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner next to each other, when what they primarily have in common is the letter B?
Filing by label is valid if you collect by label and when music is not your main concern. But why have to go to dozens of different sections to find all your Beethoven?
12 - whart
I think you have to ask what your purpose in organizing is. Is it so you, as the present owner of these records, can find them easily? Or are you interested in working at the Library of Congress? I get curation, and Paul is no doubt correct insofar as musical history is concerned, but it would seem you’ll be spending more time curating than listening. I reorganized about 12k records a while ago, while getting rid of several thousand and eventually adding quite a few more. With classical, which is only part of the mix, I segregated some by label- EMI ASD, Lyrita, Decca/London, RCA doggie and Mercury Living Presence; I then alphabetized a large quantity (by composer)- say 20 linear feet; I also set aside one shelf for typical audiophile warhorses, and another for what I consider to be banal audiophile crap, which includes some direct to disc, not limited to classical. This, obviously, has nothing to do with the rock/pop or blues/jazz/folk (which are organized alphabetically, except where some have been segregated by label). That still leaves me with thousands of records that have yet to be organized in any meaningful way, from old MHS and DG to mid-’80s Euro-pop. It’s sort of triage, in my view.
I organized the stuff I was most interested in listening to, or was readily identifiable and it’s still taken years. Electronically cataloging with meta-data- a whole other thing. I like the fact that something like Discogs is basically already ’populated’ with the data (right or wrong), so you merely have to add the item to your collection, but are there similar "populated" databases that comprehensively address classical music? (I think of Discogs more for pop). Creating a database, with deep metadata from scratch, would be a huge endeavor.
13 - syntax
I do it by Pictures... bright, dark, sunny, art and of course, stampers.
14 - mapman
Whichever way you like is best. 💡
15 - oregonpapa
Classical .... by composer.
Jazz ... by instrument ... except for the West Coast jazz groups and big bands. They have their own sections.
16 - sbank
Jazz ... by instrument? That would drive me crazy. Bags & Trane - which instrument?
Mingus Big Band - West Coast, Big Band or Bass(or piano for that matter)? LOL, different strokes...
Jazz, Rock, Folk, anything but classical, soundtracks and compilations all are easiest to sort by Artist or Primary Artist.
Classical frustrates me, know matter how I organize, it isn’t great thanks to some albums having a common thread of composer/orchestra/soloist/genre/label. No matter which way I sort, a few LPs manage to hide in the shadows when I hunt for them. At the end of the day I choose to alphabetize based on the main thing that makes me think of that album, so most Bach goes under B, "Best Military Marches" under M and "Soundtrack to Amadeus" under A.
Multi-field database sorting is one the primary joys of digital music. IMHE, it’s good news that digital playback is getting so much better than it has been until recently. Cheers,
Spencer
17 - trytone
As a classical recording dealer since 1985(Try Tone Records), I chose to adopt a version of Dave Canfield’s(Ars Antiqua) method. First sort by categories(Audiophile,conductor, violin,piano ,opera,choral,organ,modern,....). Inside the category organize by alphabet for dominant composer/performer. At the end of category place anthologies if you have no dominant individual and perhaps sort these by title or label. My customers are more likely to ask for Svatoslav Richter LP than any old performance of a Beethoven sonata. This is also the way I am organizing my fledgling web site(trytoneclassical.com). As the possessor of a Master of Science in Library and Information Sciences, let me assure you that there are a multitude of approaches to classification. Your primary interest and the ease of satisfying that may end up paramount. LS
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So far I have used all the methods described in one way or another. :^)
