Music Organization
I don’t own a ton of vinyl, but my collection is slowly growing. I’ve picked up a dozen or more new records in the last 3 months sense my wife bought me a new player (we had left our old one in PA, too big to move). I’ve acquired old albums from my parents house, including childhood staples like Sesame Street, and some of the gospel music my father used to traffic in. I’ve bought The Beatles and Clapton and Ray Charles and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I even found Robert Frost reading his own poetry, and Isaac Asimov doing the same. Everything is sitting in two cubbies on my big Ikea shelf, and I’m trying to find a way to organize them that is easy to maintain and promotes enjoyable listening.
I’m currently considering the Noguchi Filing System. Envelopes and files aside, here is the skinny:
- Put everything on the shelf, in whatever order seems good for getting started.
- Every time you play an album and are ready to return it to the shelf, put it at the far left.
- Over time, the albums most frequently will be farther to the left, and the less so towards the right. Things that I never listen to (likely held on to for nostalgia or the cover art) the far right.
This technique meets my criteria of ease of maintenance and interesting music selection. It may take me longer to find something specific, but I can usually recall how long ago I’ve last heard something, and get in the ballpark. Also, I’m much more likely to spend 2 minutes finding something to listen to than I am spending those minutes putting something away. I would guess that most people do the same. When I’m choosing a movie I stare at my selection, or Hulu, or Netflix, or whatever. Imagine if you had to requeue your Netflix video for return every time? Nobody would do it. All used records go to the top (left, really) of the stack, and you spend no time on it.
For criteria #2, consider: How long should it take you to find interesting music that you haven’t listened to in a while? Where are your forgotten favorites? iTunes does this very well with its Smart Playlists, allowing you to filter by number of times a track has been played, but the analog land has only your recollection, or the Noguchi Filing System.
I may keep a separate stack for kids music, just for ease of use, but use the same methodology. I’m going to try it out for a month or two and report back.
