DIY binding loose sheets?

iternabe · 2025-05-01T00:59:35+00:00

Shuffling several loose sheets of music is slowly getting to my nerves, so I begin to look for ways to bind them neatly. This video seems like a quite nice...

WieWaldi

TheBoringPianist Never thought about an accordion \/\/\/ shape, interesting concept. 😃
Absolutely argree to the advantage of having more than just two pages layed out. I extend my books with extra pages. Cutting off 1 cm border, then tape it manually. This allows me to have up to 4 pages side by side:
It looks like this and I am absolutely happy how well it works

On my computer, I organize all sheet music that is printed into one book in one single office document (libre office draw). It will reach about 50 MB file size with 150 pages. Usually, I add new pieces at the end. This means, I must re-print the last page of the previous piece to make full use of double sided printing. Or better: keep the book as slim as possible. If you haver tried, to tell your printer to put the last page of pdf A to the front side and the first page of pdf B the back-side of a sheet of paper, you get why I put all pieces into a single document.
With the extending pages, it gets trickier to organize the pages inside the document, but once you figured out, how to do, it is managable.

player

Having more pages visible at one time is wonderful. For me, the practical limit on a music desk is 5 pages wide. I’ve found the Sheetminder brand of music folders great for this purpose — display up to 5 sheets at a time and no page turning. Here’s a link to it on Amazon: Sheetminder Soloist

WieWaldi

player I guess this is a great solution for outdoor playing, defending the wind.
But how does the glueing part work? Is this a one-time thing - once you glued your sheet music into it, it stays glued forever? Or is it more like a Post-It - something you can remove and glue again for a few times?

player

WieWaldi
It’s more like post-it notes, you can take off pages, and put new ones on. But the sticky tape doesn’t last forever, so I’ve put new strips of double stick tape on and attached new pages a number of times, too.

ShiroKuro

TheBoringPianist here I am manually taping my loose sheets on alternating sides of the seam into accordions like \/\/\/ so that I can spread more than 2 pages across the music stand at a time

That's what I always did before I switched to mostly iPad. I liked to have four or five pages spread out on the music desk, and then if it's pretty long, you can set it up so that you turn the page in the middle somewhere.

I explained my system at PW once a long time ago... It's kind of elaborate but results in very sturdy scores that don't flop on the music stand and are easy to turn.

Oh and another important detail is to use very good quality double sided tape rather than glue.

If someone's curious, I can explain it. But first let me go find a photo... ok here’s one example. This is 12 pages, all connected together and then you can fold it accordion style.

WieWaldi

ShiroKuro 12 pages 😵
Your music rest isn't that wide. And if it would, you need a neck like a giraffe. 😅
Okay, this means you must turn pages somehow. And you must turn them exactly when one page ends and the next one starts. You have no room to find a good turning spot. (because one hand is free for a moment...)

With my system, I can do up to 8 pages, when 4 of them are visible at the same time:
(Page 3 is taped to 1, and page 6 is taped to 8.)

Starting situation are pages:

3,1,2,6: After page 2, I must know to look on the left side for page 3. While my eyes are on 3, I can wait for a spot to turn both center pages into:
3,4,5,6: Here it is straight forward until I reach page 6. And again, while I am playing page 6 there should be a position that allows me to turn the center pages easily into:
3,7,8,6 now I only must remember to look at the mid-left page after 6 is finished

Looks complicated, but I am sure it works.
I'll find out after I left my beginner stage and start working on longer pieces.🤣

ShiroKuro

WieWaldi Your music rest isn't that wide.

No it's not. 😂

But I used to have the music sitting so that I could see more than four pages at once, and maybe I'd turn twice. It's hard to explain, but it worked quite well. Because the whole thing is linked together, you can fold it like a book, so you see two pages at once, and just turn it like a book. Or you can do various creative arrangements, the paper is nice and thick so it's very easy to maneuver.

I did it like this for years, and I still have all the scores, they're in very good condition.

I found out that Amazon (US) even sells the Japanese tape I always used, good quality double-sided tape with backing (which is much easier to use than double-sided tape w/o backing)

WieWaldi

ShiroKuro seems as you had worked out a quite complicated system. But I totally understand why it is necessary with longer pieces.
I had the good luck to be on the 1_st row on two concerts. And I had quite a good few of the violin players up there on the stage. There were always 2 violins sharing one music rest - playing the same notes. And sometimes one violin had to stop playing for the page turning while the other one continued. They used lose paper sheets. No book, no binding, nothing taped. The turning took a little and often they had to use both hands. Amateurs - hahaha. In a big orchestra it is okay if one instrument makes a short pause, but as solo pianist....

Btw: for turning the pages, I use Post-It stickers at the side of the pages. I bend them up a little bit to have something like a grip. This makes it impossible to turn two paper sheets instead of one. And no time is lost for grabbing a single page. If I do, it looks like this (47 sec) or like this (1:40).
Turned out, this method was very reliable and I there was need to glue 2 pages together in order to make them heavier.

Sophia

You guys need something like this:

All that's still needed is something to trigger the thing and, voila... Mechanical page turner! Even Bach could use it!

WieWaldi

Sophia If you are a famous concert pianist, you can afford to pay a groupie for turning the pages

ShiroKuro

WieWaldi I like your post-it notes. I used paperclips up at the top of the score, but your location is better, it seems like it would be easier to get your hand there than all the way to the top.

Sophia

But but but... that's nowhere near as fun as a fancy gadget! Except when you are Victor Borge of course...

Edit: this is the first time I heard Victor Borge not speaking English! 😮 Here's his sketch in English:

pianoloverus

Sophia The page turner is Victor Borge's son.

WieWaldi

ShiroKuro Indeed. My first try was to have them at the top. But then the hand moves a longer way up to the stickers and the turning itself isn't that good. I was always afraid of tearing the paper, if I do the movement really quick. Center of the page is by far the best position. And of course have the post-it at the back-side of the sheet. Otherwise you risk removing the post-it instead of turning the page.

Sophia

Ooooh really?? Which one, the one in the Danish (?) version or English?

pianoloverus

Sophia English

iternabe

Update: I bought the GBC Proclick Punch and Spine. They meet my need perfectly!

Note: For those living in regions that A4 size is the standard, the Kokuyo binder and punch would be the perfect solution. However, two things prevented me from going with Kokuyo: 1) I want to use the 30-hole punched paper for smoother page turning, and 2) I want to use Letter size paper because that's the most commonly printed size in the US. GBC ProClick is designed for Letter size paper. The only drawback is their punch is quite expensive. Luckily, I was able to find one on eBay for less than half price.

Another of my specific requirement is the system to have spine that's very slim, as my current need for each book would contain no more than 20 pages.

Well, here is some picture to show how it works. First, the punch ($50) and spines ($15):

Punch can go through to 6 pages at a time. It's a pretty simple mechanical device, and very well made, so I don't see any problem buying used.

The spines packet comes with this little tool to open the closed spine like a zipper. If I ever lose this tool, a screwdriver would probably work, too.

After inserting the new pages, you close the spine by pressing on each ring so that little nub on one end insert to the other end with a slight click.

I added thicker card stock paper as front and back cover. The finished book stays on the music desk flat and page turns easily and smoothly.

WieWaldi

Congrats, you will be very happy with system. I think, I said it earlier, this one covers very well the needs of someone, who occasionally wants to print and store new sheet music.

WieWaldi

Btw, the Kokuyo system would have worked for letter, too. It is capable of any size that is equal or smaller than A4. Just look at the pictures, they have shown A5 and B5 as well. With letter, you lose 1 or 2 holes. And maybe you would have to DIY a spacer into the puncher, if you want to have the holes centered.
And you need to cut the spines with scissors. That's actually a good thing. Allowing to have the spine a few mm longer than the paper. Makes page turning on a music rest even easier. And don't worry about 20 holes vs 30 holes. The difference in your turning experience is negligible.

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