Organizing your music: Spreadsheet? Database? Other?

[kevinmathie]

Hi all,

Since I'm starting to get a bit of a collection music -- some unfinished, some finished but not submitted, some submitted but not placed, some placed, some written by me, some co-written with others, etc., etc., etc. -- I'm looking for the best way to keep track of everything. Up until now, I've just been doing it by memory, but my collection is getting a little large for that now. And, I can only imagine how difficult that would be as I start approaching the numbers of songs that, say, Kello Tronica, Dave Walton, Mazz, Matto, et al, has out there working for them.

Plus, if something should happen to me, I need to have everything documented for my wife, so she can keep tabs of everything, since she and my daughter would be entitled to that income in the future.

So, what do you use? Do you use a simple spreadsheet? A database like FileMaker? Or is there something that's sort of custom-built for commercial composers?

[remmet]

Kevin - I started a very similar thread a couple of months ago, and it got a lot of excellent responses. Here's the link:

http://forums.taxi.com/topic106276.html


Richard

[Russell Landwehr]

Ya know, we keep looking at this topic from a "digital" standpoint...

And I've been finding lately, that the ol' "analog" way of doing things (sheets of paper in folders in a file drawer) might not be so bad.

It's like this: our minds are MUCH more capable of taking in more information than a computer monitor can EVER show us at any one time. We can shuffle around pieces of paper and hold one in each hand while four are laid out on the desk... and then overlay them, or shift them side-by-side in reverse inverted..... well you get the idea (right?) We didn't evolve with computers in front of our faces, we hold things in our hands and put together puzzles on our kitchen table. We are tactile beings.

There is something very satisfying about having the info in a TANGIBLE form. I keep trying to find apps for my android and database programs for my office desktop... but in reality, writing it down on a piece of paper and putting it in a folder is the ORIGINAL way that all these digital hoo-gee-widgets are trying to emulate. Think of it like this. Do you want the REAL THING? or the "android" emulation.

I'm going back to paper!

Russell

P.S. I vote "OTHER"

[CabDriver]

Kevin,
I think you will like TuneSmith. It's a software specifically developed to maintain song catalogs and does everything you have asked for including songwriter splits, copyright registration, song pitch journal to track your submissions etc.:

http://www.rhymegenie.com/tunesmith.html

It's a free software for registered users of Rhyme Genie but at $25 even Rhyme Genie doesn't break the bank and is more advanced than MasterWriter.