Whether you’re living in a small apartment, or you’ve got a dedicated room for music in your home, it’s not hard for our instrument collections and related gear to become a tangled-up mess that becomes harder and harder to understand.
In this post Gavin Whitner shares his top tips to organising your gear and instruments at home. Gavin is a musician and blogger at MusicOomph, where he regularly blogs about musical instruments and music in general.
When you break everything down from the instruments themselves and then picks, amps, cables, speakers, strings, cleaning equipment, cloths, bags, stands and so on, it’s quickly becomes obvious a system is needed to keep everything in check; and today, we’ll show you how.
Use Vertical Storage
Things quickly become overwhelmingly messy when it’s all stored on the ground of your music room, and this is a sure-fire way for things to get lost and unmanageable. Instead, start by utilising your wall space to keep things organised and manageable.
For example, hanging your guitars on the wall not only protect them from getting knocked about on the floor, but it also looks really cool! This is also a really inexpensive solution!
Plan Ahead
In every aspect of life, prevention is also better than cure, so stopping your music room from becoming a mess in the first place will save you ever having to organise it, but this means you’ll need to plan ahead.
For example, if you’ve got a record collection, you’ll need a record player. However, instead of going for gold on the first player you can find, think about getting yourself a compact record player that takes up far less room but still allows you to enjoy your music!
Optimise Your Desk Space
Chances are you’ve got yourself a desk for your computer and the instruments you plug in and produce on. This could include anything from DJ decks and turntables to keyboards and synthesizers. When getting yourself a desk, make sure you opt for one with a sliding keyboard shelf.
This way, when you’re doing using your equipment and gear, you can simply slide it out of the way until you need it next. Also, you might want to consider organising all your cables using ties or even a colour-coded system!
Keep Everything Together
One of the nastiest habits a musician can fall into is simply putting something down when they’ve finished using it, or have a dedicated space for one thing, such as a wires and cables box. How are you ever supposed to find anything? Keep everything organised and together won’t only help you find everything, it will also help you save space.
For example, buying yourself a little bookcase on wheels can be a great place to store your amps. You can then keep all the cables, wheels, parts and anything else you have in the same space, and you still have access to the surface space on top! If you’re unable to keep everything organised like this, maybe it’s best to stick with a compact instrument instead; perhaps a harmonica?
Summary
As you can see, there are plenty of ideas and opportunities to maximise the space in your house, regardless of how many instruments and equipment you own. The best thing to do is to take to the time to plan, look for creative solutions that keep everything together, and optimise every bit of space you can!