Will that be paper or computer for your music charts?

In the bad old days everything was (still is) on paper, on a stand, including of course set lists.

I have about a bizillion lyric/chord sheets which I have been creating and trying to keep organized since I was about 14! I originally started writing everything down in a smallish 2 ring binder, all printed by hand in ink, with the chord changes above in red. That worked OK for years and I still have all the original stuff complete with dog-eared ripped and stained pages.

As personal computers became affordable I started to write it all in a word processor and printed it out. That had a lot of benefits, not the least of which was a larger size and greater clarity which I could actually read on stage! That triggered yet another collection of songs on 81/2 x 11 in 3 ring binders and folders.  

As I look around at my little guitar room setup I'm finding it more of a nuisance, especially if I feel like playing something I haven't done in a while and it isn't readily available. What a frustration to know I have a song...somewhere...but can't find it! Kinda kills the spontaneity of the moment, ya know?

So what's this all about then? Just this. I have an Android tablet computer that I use mostly when I'm outside on the porch just for music or an occasional video. It occurred to me recently that it might be an idea to convert all that paper to electronic versions (PDF's) and make life a little bit smoother. I'm no longer gigging so that's not a concern but it would be nice to replace the piles of paper with a single tablet on the stand.

Is anyone here doing this? I've done a bit of experimentation with some free apps and many are amazingly good, but I need to organize PDF's of my own creation rather than download preformatted songs from the 'net.

Any suggestions, ideas are welcome. 

Mate, I did EXACTLY as you describe - listening to records and making cheat sheets, all of which eventually ended as as Word documents... or whatever I want them to be these days - Apple make great file conversion software!!

I guess I did things differently, though, as most of the outfits I was in didn't use cheat sheets onstage, and only a couple of the ones that did used music stands - we used them in the practice room to sort out intros, chord patterns, key signatures, solos, vocal harmonies and codas which I would then go away and 'do up' for the other band members. See, we worked up a set list that was pretty standard and practiced till we knew 'em off by heart - that was the theory, and if we forgot some words during a performance, we just fudged it till it came good! I worked with a singing drummer once who not only was the loudest I ever worked with but he could sing an entire song - one of the setlist songs - in nonsense words and make it sound primo; gifted bloke!!
I reckon you should leave them as they are, man; I can't see any reason to convert themall to .pdf - can you?

corsair wrote:...I reckon you should leave them as they are, man; I can't see any reason to convert themall to .pdf - can you?

Not really I guess, except for the sheer convenience of having to be able to find what I need right away instead of flipping through piles of pages in several books. By the time I locate what I'm looking for I'm usually out of the mood to play it.

The early ("small page") stuff that I mainly used for my own solo playing was dutifully numbered and indexed so no worries there. But it's the later material I used in the band which is mainly loose leaf and not indexed at all. When Glenn and I would create a set list I'd pull the appropriate pages and order them. Like you we'd then practice the piss out of those songs. Everything left was un-ordered in binders and folders.

Oh, sorry - I misunderstood!! I thought you already had them digitised - my bad!! Yes; of course!! You should immediately re-type them all out into a word processing programme.... then show me what you've got so I can cherry pick a few... !

It does make life easier, having them on computer but how many songs are you talking about here?! I'm not at all sure I'd want to be doing that sort of thing now, mate!

Quite a few. And I would not be typing them out.
The plan is to scan the handwritten pages and convert to PDF's. I can do that either on my flat bed scanner or using a scanner app on the tablet. Very handy.

What I cannot settle on is the reader and organizational portion of the equation. There are some excellent apps that will download songs in the Chordie Chopro format which is a markup method which automatically formats the chart. It even allows you to transpose the key with just a click. Very impressive.

But I need one which will also import my PDF's. Oh, and of course, because I am a cheep bastid, I would like it to be free!
There are a few I can get for a few $$ which will do this but I'm having a look about first. I may just use a PDF reader and be done with it but it would be great to have the ability to display and organize both PDF's and downloads.

Will Acrobat not do that? Or whatever the modern equivalent of Acrobat is....

It would also be good to be able to edit the cheat sheets, yes??

Don't really need the horsepower of Acrobat (the Adobe app). There are lots of alternatives to actually create and annotate the PDF's.

Acrobat Reader DC is fine to display the PDF's (and free) but I'm looking for something that will organize as well as display the scans. I think I have found a couple of free apps in the Android world that might work OK to that end. remember, it's a whack of charts I need to catalogue and retrieve easily, not just a one off.

Gettin' closer methinks.