ForScore provides several hierarchy tools to help with this task. Pieces can be put into one or more libraries, and also set lists. In addition to the title, each piece can also be assigned sorting data such as composer, genre, and whatever other tags or labels you might want to use. Larger works or collections can also be assigned bookmarks so you can pull up individual movements without having to flip through lots of pages.<\/p>\n
Naturally there are many ways you can approach organizing your digital music, so I’ll just tell you what works for me. The most important thing is to come up with a system and use it every time you import a new piece into your library. Otherwise, you risk a huge jumbled mess of music you\u2019ll never find again when you need it.<\/p>\n
Organizing Music<\/h1>\nLibraries<\/h3>\n
Caveat: adding libraries is helpful for visually browsing your music, but it can make searching a bit trickier. Until you get the hang of searching and how forScore works, you may want stick to just a few libraries, or even none at all. If you use libraries, be diligent about assigning new pieces to one as soon as you import them, or they’re likely to become next up in your “I can’t find it!” list (see below).<\/p>\n
Attributes<\/h3>\n
Next in the chain are attributes, such as title, composer, genre, and tags. Including this information is helpful but not mandatory. You\u2019ll of course want to make sure your title is accurate and doesn\u2019t include any misspellings or you may never find what you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
Think about what genres are relevant to you as you import your music. You’ll probably want things here like “Holiday,” “Celtic,” “Pop,” etc. You can name your genres anything you like, and create as many as you want. You can also assign tags, which can be whatever key words you find useful like \u201cwedding,\u201d or \u201cready to play,\u201d or \u201ckid-friendly.\u201d Or if you teach, you could tag all the pieces each student is working on with their name to pull up quickly during lessons.<\/p>\n
Set Lists<\/h3>\n
I like to think of set lists as groups of works in progress or centered around events. For example, you could have “next week’s lesson material” or “Jones wedding music” in set lists. One harpist I know uses set lists to gauge progress\u2014deleting one indicates a goal accomplished. Of course your set lists can also hang around for as long as you need them. You could have \u201cwedding preludes 2017″ or “holiday favorites” that work throughout the season. Unlike libraries, you can reorder the entries in your set lists to suit the occasion.<\/p>\n
Important to know is that set lists are library specific. So you could have a library of wedding music and create a \u201cJones wedding\u201d set list there, but this list won\u2019t show up in your \u201corchestra excerpts library,\u201d which can be a bit confusing sometimes. If you want to select music from your entire collection for a set list, be sure to choose \u201cAll Libraries\u201d before creating it. Likewise if you want to see all your set lists in once place, go to \u201cAll Libraries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bookmarks<\/h3>\n
Assigning bookmarks is helpful for quickly finding movements or pieces in a collection. Bookmarks are highlighted in blue in the score menu and are created from the\u2014wait for it\u2014\u201cbook\u201d icon in the top bar. One important thing to know about bookmarks is that you can enter both a starting and an ending page number. If you want to be able to continue to scroll through your whole book when you pull up an individual bookmark, omit the end page number.<\/p>\n
Finding Music Quickly<\/h1>\n
For me, the quickest and easiest way to pull up a single piece that I know is in my library is to use the magnifying glass search tool in the top bar. Beginning to type the title, composer, or a key word almost always gets me what I want.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I\u2019m in more of a \u201chmmm, what should I play now?\u201d mood, which in forScore isn\u2019t quite the same as rifling through a stack on my bookshelf. To browse, you\u2019ll want to get familiar with the score menu by clicking on the music note icon in the top left corner. From there you can search within libraries, or by composer, genre, or tag.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t find it!<\/h3>\n
Remember: The best way to prevent lost music is to make sure the title and other searching data is accurate as you import each piece to your library!<\/em><\/p>\n Speaking of importing new music, the last piece of advice I\u2019ll leave you with is how to quickly find new music that you\u2019ve imported to forScore, since new scores don\u2019t always open by default. Once again, you\u2019ll want to go to go to the score menu, then \u201cAll Libraries,\u201d and finally \u201cAll Scores.\u201d Sorting by \u201cnewest\u201d will show you your most recent imports. (Can you tell I\u2019m a fan of the Pedal Sliders’ new arrangements! Check them out here<\/a>.).<\/p>\n I hope this has helped provide you with a starting point for building your own digital library. Do you have any tips or suggestions to share? Another way to do things? Leave your comments here. We want to hear from you!<\/p>\nFinding new imports<\/h3>\n
Step by Step<\/h3>\n
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