What is the best way to bind a bunch of sheet music I’ve found on the web?
I don’t know the first thing about sheet music, but my girlfriend does and I’m working on a gift for her in which I’m collecting a bunch of music she likes and binding them into a book.
I’m assuming spiral binding is preferred to facilitate easy page-turning. Should I be printing on fronts and backs of a page? Is that better than printing on just the fronts?
Anything else I should be cognizant of?
Spiral binding is much better so it lays flat, although lord knows there are lot of glue-bound books sold every day.
I assume she’s going to play it…Are these pop, jazz, classical? Pop tunes with vocals are often on 2-3 pages; lead sheets for jazz are usually on one; classical can be all over the place. What instrument does she play?
I would suggest that you arrange each selection so that if it’s two pages, the pages are facing so you don’t have to turn a page. If it’s one page, it can go on either the left or right. If it’s more than two pages, you have to either pick where to start arbitrarily or figure out where the easiest page turn is, which is tricky if you don’t play an instrument yourself.
It’s OK to print on both sides of a page if you take the above into account.
Leave a goodsized margin on the binding side. That is, if it’s going to be a left page, leave a large margin on the right side of the page, and vice versa. The binding will take up some room, and if you don’t leave enough of a margin, it will either look bad but still be readable, or the printing near the binding will be unreadable.
I can’t picture spiral-bound pages of sheet music being easy to turn while playing. You’ve got one shot, and you’ve got to do it quickly.
Years ago, when I still played piano a lot. I made photocopies of all my favorite pieces and put them in a three-ring binder. Very easy to turn pages.
If you’re not familiar with music, you may want to consult a knowledgeable friend on setting up the pagination. Some pieces have bad page breaks, and for those I would punch them on the opposite side so that left was right and vice versa to make page turning easier.
Three ring binders work well and are cheap. Paying a printer to bind a book for you can get pricey…
Foldouts can be useful for some 3-page works, if your stand is wide enough (or almost so) to accommodate all three pages. This is usually the case for piano, but not for many separate music stands.