I am a hoarder of music.
I realized this after moving this past September. I used to keep all of my music in a cardboard box (a big cardboard box...), and I found a great non-metal, non-corporate-looking filing cabinet in which to store said music. Meticulously alphabetizing DVDs and CD's has always been a necessity of mine - and so it excited me that I would finally have the space to sort and order my music to my heart's content.
My heart did not remain contented for long - in fact, when sorting lasted about 4 hours longer than I had envisioned (even with the help of my wonderful Prince Charming), and when I found myself on the floor still surrounded by piles of music well into the wee hours I realized I had a problem.
Was I over-sorting? I didn't think so. My sorting strategy was this: I was putting all of my orchestral viola parts into folders by composer, I put all of my old chamber music parts into just one big folder, my etude/scale/technical books into another, and I was only sorting the non-orchestral viola music by composer, not by genre (such as concertos, sonatas, etc., which would have taken even longer).
The vast amount of music to actually be organized was overwhelming.
I still have photocopies of almost all the Youth Orchestra and All-State parts from performances I did in high school. Who knows? Maybe I will get asked to play Elgar Serenade for Strings at the last minute and have to rely on my own personal music library because the engagement was too last minute to procure a practice part!
I went through a phase in early undergrad where I inter-library loaned hard-to-find or expensive viola concertos (for a college student's budget) that I had become obsessed with from listening to recordings of them. Now I am realizing I should have copied the piano parts as well...usually I just barely had enough change in my pocket to make copies of just the viola part. Recently I've ordered a few of these pieces to have the original - my weathered copies feel like cloth now and are yellowing with age!
I also have never discarded a practice part of a symphony, even if I have performed it more than once. You can imagine the size of my "Beethoven" folder…
I am sure you can also imagine how many practice parts I have accumulated after undergrad, Shepherd School Symphony, orchestra repertoire class, Brevard Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, coaching Houston Youth Symphony and New World. I could never justify throwing a part away when so many conductors have such different insights into pieces - my Michael Tilson Thomas "La Mer" is oodles of difference from Alan Gilbert's. The contrast in fingerings of Dr. Carroll’s Ginastera solo part as compared with Steve Wyrczynski’s or Joan DerHovsepian’s could be the subject of a small book.
When it comes to acquiring music, I have another weakness besides not being able to "part with a part".
Ever since late undergrad, and into my Master's and beyond I have been slowly building my collection of etude and technical books. I have quite a few now. I think my rationale is that I will practice each and every scale or etude contained within with perfection and precision, and as a result become a better violist each and every time a book is mastered and ticked off my list.
Can we not talk about how many of these books I’ve never opened since purchasing them?
Of all the music surrounding me that fateful September evening, did I throw anything away? Only the odd page here and there that I had accidentally double-copied. The nostalgia of looking through every single piece of music I owned was also bittersweet - fond memories, awful memories, feelings of success and guilt were all mingled together.
With determination I succeeded in alphabetizing, categorizing, and cataloguing my music. It is now neatly stowed away and easily found at a moment’s notice.
…except for the small, growing pile at the base of the chair that I sit in to teach…
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