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Didn't want to sidetrack my other songbook thread, and also thought this MIGHT be something worth looking into. I personally have NEVER seen a songbook that was divided by GENRE. I think it would probably go over pretty good, as a singer could find their preference in music easier. The songs would still be by title, or artist, and still in alphabetical order, but seperated into sections. White pages= country, yellow pages= classic rock, green pages= club dance, etc. What do you think about this???
I think it would take me years to do this, am I wrong???

Rosario

Note: Not REALLY years, but you know what I mean!!! Don't you???

Serenity, I think I'd probably enjoy a book like that -- and had I thought about it when I ripped my collection to hoster, I could have done it then....but too late now. I've never seen a book sorted by genre.

Before I got into karaoke, I spent hours with my ipod music collection. All the songts had the lyrics which can be pulled up on an ipod, they have the album artwork, they tell what year the song was (just after the song name on the main screen) and if they were #1 song, I placed that next to the year. I gave each song a genre, that's a tough one. I ended up breaking it down by decade, and genre for the most part. For instance "70's pop, 80's rock, 90's hip hop and so on. Plus a Christmas list. I first had a "classic rock" genre and still do but most of it was from the 70's anyway so now it's by decade.

It would be nice if our software could automatically do that but it would be tough. I'll pass on that and let the browsers find their music.

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About the only problem I could see is there are so many cross over artists today I'm not even sure what they are calling themselves.

Just exactly is Kid Rock's Genre?
How about Taylor Swift although mainly country she does others.
Same with Carrie Underwood and lots of others.
In a Genre book I wouldn't know exactly where to look for a song if I didn't know exactly what Genre it fell under.

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I did it when I first started, quickly stopped, too much complaining that people couldn't find the songs they were looking for as like stated, some would look in pop/rock for the new 'country' song that is also playing in the pop side or vice verse. Became more of a hassle & even tried figuring out who was on the crossover list & put them in both listings, but that just added more headache & work on my side. Did this for less than a year before intermixing everything back into one listing only. Use the KISS method, overcomplicating books may seem like a good idea & harmless but think you'll find the same problems - especially with all the country/pop crossovers today.

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The request I have had over & over is a "Duet List", which honestly is a great idea...but I just haven't had the time to go through everything and sort it out.

A couple of months ago, that's exactly what I did. I no longer make full songbooks available. I purchased some multi-page 8-1/2X14 restaurant plastic menu holders. Instead of "soups", "salads" and "sandwiches" I list about 800 most-requested songs organized in categories like pop, rock (each for a different decade from 50s-60s to 90s-00s), country, etc.

I make several announcements throughout the evening that my karaoke "menus" have our most requested songs, but if anyone wants to sing anything else, they can come up and have me search my 10,000 song library with my KJ software.

Why did I go to this system? When I used to have full books, week after week I'd see people squint and turn page after page for half an hour...and STILL come up with one of the "usual" songs that people sing. I also let those who come up to me and ask, "Are these all the songs you have?" that was the reason ... and humorously add now they don't have to page through 30 Engelbert Humperdinck tunes to get to the good stuff they WANT to sing.

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Although I have several categories like duets or suitable for kids that I could come up with , I have never thought to do one by genre. Mostly because I am a Jimmy Buffett fan and when I used to go look to buy his new CDs I would have to look in Country in some stores and Pop in others and as some have said, it just isn't logical with all the crossovers. I have a bad enough time deciding what is obscene and what isn't.

I already have about 300 non english songs, and I intend to add a few hundred more soon.

At that point I intend to divide my book by language. I think that I have a decent chance of having a (reasonable) request song in english so the singer can look to the book in the appropriate place. On the other hand a singer who wishes to sing in another language has a very limited selection. To make a German language singer read all 200 pages of my book to find the 100 or so German songs is a bit much.
Same with Spanish language songs where I have about 200.

My point is no, I do not likely have the German or Spanish song they may want to sing but I might have an alternative that they may be willing to sing if they can find it. But with my current book they would be very hard to find.

I have not decided yet if I will move the non-English songs from the main section or just add a special section (with different color paper).

I agree. Here's another thing.... There was a place that I went to a few times (about 12 years ago) that had their songbooks broken up by eras... 60's, 70's 80's, 90's. That was even more confusing, because I was unsure what year a lot of songs came out.

Now, in my books, I have everything listed (1 book by Artists, 1 book by Titles). In additional to that, I added a "Specialty" section, where I re-listed certain genres. I listed "Children's Songs," "Christmas Songs," "TV Tunes," "Broadway/Movie Songs," "Irish Songs," "Duets," and "Spanish Songs."

I like the idea, and it would be great to just look thru the country book for 90% of the songs I choose. But at the same time, it does seem like alot of work for ya, and there are alot of valid points being made why not to. How about someone looking for a song that's a remake? If they're not looking in the right book /decade, that person may miss an opportunity to sing this song. Granted it may have varied from how they know it, but they'd have the choice right in front of their eyes.

My take: Thanks, but not needed.

Well, I guess it's unanimous, I won't be seperating any books by genre. All of you have confirmed my suspicions of the "why I shouldn't" do it. Besides, as I stated earlier, I KNEW it would be ALOT of hassle. SOOO, back to de-duping!!!! Thanks for the input.

Rosario

instead of doing books that have both song list and artist I will be changing and have 6 books by artist and 2 by title

A separate artists & Title book i've been doing for the last 6 years. Combining the books - while preferred - is just not cost effective anymore. However I still have the same amount of books for each. I used to print 15 combined books, now I just print 10 & separate them giving me 20 total books - 10 each. Most of the nights it's the artist books that get snagged first, but the title books get equally as used throughout the night, and sometimes moreso.

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I have a duet listing in my artist books, but the duets are also listed under the artists name. So you can look up a duet under the duet listings or by the artist's name. That way you can find them in both places. I also do Musicals this way, double listing.

I keep Christmas songs and Spanish songs in a separate book.

I liked the idea of making table stands for the most sung songs. That was in another thread.

If your venue sings a certain genre more than another, say country, it might be a great idea just to do a separate country book. But to do all genres I think would be tough.

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I'm finding that people find it easier just to ask me, if they are interested in a very specific artist, to ask me to bring up their list on the computer. It's easier for me, too....although I'm now back to having absolutely everything in the books by artist and song title. I slacked off for a month and having to answer peoples' questions about this song and that song got me inspired to just get it done. Now just have to insert. There must be an abundance of hosts around here who don't have everything in their books because singers new to my show will come up and ask to see the discs that aren't in the books - nice to be able to say everything is IN THE BOOK. If it isn't, I don't have it.

I have my books in (3) catagories: Country, Pop, Oldies. Each by artist and song

Mrmarog

I get that as well. If I have a large disc order or from multiple sources would be the only time I would have any new discs that were not listed. I will bring them in, post on my web & let them know that they are there to sing, but not listed so one may get to be the first to sing something. When I get my complete order is when I will update the new section - usually within a few days max.

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That's exactly what I do. I only have 2 by title, and rarely do people even ask for them.