(This was written in 1986, when home computers were a bit smaller
than today!  It was previously published in "Remember That Song"
and "Rag Times" and possibly elsewhere.)

Dear Computerized Collector:  I seek advice on how to organize a
computer data base for both manuscripts (sheet music) and recorded
performances.

I am a collector of 1920's music in order to support the interests of
the South Frisco Jazz Band, as well as my solo piano repertoire, and as
a result have accumulated a relatively modest but growing collection of
phono recordings, nickelodeon rolls, piano rolls, and of course, sheet
music (or, more often, photocopies thereof).

The immediate need for this effort is related to the piano roll
publishing and recutting activities conducted by collectors/dealers
like Mike and Fred Schwimmer, of Lake Bluff, IL.  Mike usually
photocopies the original piano roll label for the new box label, and so
I have a starting point for researching the song and related material.
Here's an example of what I get into.

My wife, Carole, wrote to Mike Schwimmer for a few piano rolls for my
birthday; Mike knows what styles I enjoy, and included this treasure:

*SONG TITLE:      What a Girl! What a Night!
*COMPOSER:        Sanders
*ORIG C'RIGHT:    Leo Feist, Inc. (date blurred)
 CURRENT C'RIGHT: ?
 PERF CLEARANCE:  ASCAP (probably)

*MUSIC ROLL: Atlas 3757
*PERFORMER:  Phil Lynch
*PERF DATE:  June 1928 ? (implied from rollography)
 TEMPO:      70 (M.M.= 105, Fast Fox Trot or Two Step)
 COMMENTS:   5 steps per beat, approx. 0.4 inch per beat,
             88 note scale.  Original was "word roll".
 CONDITION:  (RR coll.)  New re-cut by Play-Rite, canary stock

* Asterisk denotes data from roll label.

I happily put the roll on the ol' Pianola, and exclaimed, "That's a
tremendous song and performance -- how come I've never heard it before?
And who is Phil Lynch?  I gotta locate the words."

So I played the roll over the telephone to a nearby buddy with a fine
record collection, and he told me that the same song was recorded in
1928 (or whenever) by the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, and has a vocal
chorus (but no verse) sung by Joe Sanders.  What's more, we mused, the
artist "Phil Lynch" might very well be Sanders himself.  He was a fine
pianist and arranger as well as a great singer.

And so the researching continued via correspondence and conversations
with other record collectors, and also dyed-in-the-wool sheet music
collectors like Gloria Ekrom, Trebor Tichenor and Mike Montgomery, and
I discovered that most of the songs recorded on phono records by the
Nighthawks were published in sheet music form, including titles like
"Here Comes My Ball and Chain" and "Slue Foot".

The Nighthawks were a traveling band, and due to their regular radio
broadcasts the band had a voracious appetite for fresh material in their
style.  I now suspect that many hot band numbers they performed were
arranged for them by "Doc" Cook, who had his own similar style band in
South Side Chicago.  Thus the data base for this song could include
more entries such as:

PHONO RECD:  Victor 12345 (also on Victor "Vintage" LP)
PERFORMER:   Coon-Sanders Nighthawks (vocal by Joe Sanders)
PERF DATE:   May 1928
PERF LOC'N:  New York

PHONO RECD:  Brunswick 12345
PERFORMER:   Cookie's Gingersnaps (Freddie Keppard, cornet)
PERF DATE:   April 1928
PERF LOC'N:  Chicago

SHEET MUSIC: Leo Feist, Inc. 1928
COMMENTS:    Words for 2 verses, 1 refrain with girl/boy variations.
             Has 16-bar patter chorus that doesn't exist on recorded
             performances.  (Hot Ziggety!!)

COVER:       Pen & ink of boy & girl & moon
COVER:       Simple art, orange, 3x5 photo of Cook's Dreamland Orch.
COVER:       Simple art, orange, 3x5 photo of Nighthawks

MUSIC ROLL:  Clark A-1234, "Hot Stomps and Fox Trots" (A-roll)
COMMENTS:    Mike Montgomery owns original A-roll.  Arrangement same as
             Atlas 3757 but scale reduced for A-roll.  Mike says it's
             from one of many 88-note rolls licensed from Atlas to Clark
             for conversion to nickelodeon rolls.

(Note: I've invented the data for the above illustrations, so don't
believe the "facts"!)

Well, this stuff obviously can grow and grow, and I wonder what the
best way is to handle it on a personal computer?  It seems that the
master file of data should be by song title, and then have ancillary
index files or search routines to find data about performances and
authors, and so on.  What do you suggest?  And in particular, what
do think are the various possible additional data fields?

How would you search for alternate titles, subtitles, and "split"
titles like, "(I Love My Wife But) Oh! You Kid".  How would you organize
the entries for multiple, different performances, and for different
sheet music editions and covers (including later editions by surviving
publishers)?

To catalog a physical collection you'd want fields indicating the
physical description and condition of the sheet music or piano roll.

Memory size notwithstanding, home computers just don't have massive
disk file storage, and in any event if collectors are going to share
data base files it should be done on floppy disks which can be mailed.
So how do you organize the process so that the complete data base
doesn't have to exist on one monstrous physical device?

I want to use the computer and data base as a reference source, so that
I can easily find the data (and trivia) to write liner notes for a
performance anthology, for instance, or to correct persistent errors
promulgated by sloppy contemporary publishers.  Or simply to confirm
that I do possess an item that I have hopelessly misplaced!

Robbie Rhodes

 [ Gosh, this sure sounds dated now!  Bob Fitterman spotted an advert at
 [ Egghead for a 10.8 GB hard drive for $79 -- that's $8 per gigabyte!
 [ -- Robbie