Journal Recommendations

Hi All,

Occasionally, the idea of starting a guitar journal comes up. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to go about that? I think I’m going to buy a composition notebook (because I like taking notes in those anyways) and start writing stuff in there, but I’d be interested in any ideas on the type of notebook or how to format things.

Grace and Peace,
Todd

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My wife is a big stationary nerd so I’ve had nice stationary items at my disposal for a while now. What I’ve settled on is just a good A5 dot/grid notebook, a couple of music stamps to do chord diagrams/tab/stand notation, and a couple of fountain pens (I usually have 3-4 inked, 1 for regular writing, a secondary color, and a third color with a broad/fude nib to highlight important things). Book Darts are useful to keep track of important pages.

For formatting I use the upper right corner of each page as very abbreviated summary to just keep track what I practiced that day or any music I listened too that I enjoyed. The rest is usually music theory notes or paragraphs of what I’m struggling with and what advice I found to resolve the issue. I also have a few report covers to keep printouts and sheet music in.

I used to do a lot more with planners but these are a hobby in themselves to keep up with so I’ve settled to just jotting notes and doing personal diary entries once or twice a week.

Here’s some of the more serious planners I’ve tried

If you have an unlimited budget these notebook organizers are amazing… but also pretty expensive for what’s basically a fancy binder.

The big 3 manufactures for quality paper are

  • Clairefontaine
  • Tomoe
  • Rohdia

Pretty much any notebook using that paper shouldn’t have any problems with ink bleeding or feathering.

FriXion makes very good erasable pens if you are worried about needing to erase.

These are the stamps I bought for doing music/tab/chord diagrams https://a.co/d/8kBBECp

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Wow! :open_mouth:

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When I was using paper it was either composition books or Moleskine notebooks.

These days I’ve gone digital and use a text file on my computer. Just plain text that I update with a text editor, so it’s not tied to a specific application or proprietary format. I write it in “markdown.”

I sometimes think I’d be better off going back to pen and paper, though.

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I think a Journal is an excelent idea but I really think that over the years that this task is far better suited to being online somehow.

I dont think it will be easy but, I’ve not looked into this. If your saving items like apropostt has mentiond, the file will become hugh. IE, music scores, listened to music of the day, practice regime. One would need a serious journal to do this yet, I have no idea how to approach it online. Either way, a hournal is a really good idea.

R.H

My wife owns a business and she also makes and sells stamps…and yet I never got the idea in the first months to have a chordbox stamp made :confounded: :confounded: :upside_down_face:…I have make a lot of them and very messy… very sloppy…sigh ,…unfortunately she only does business to business so I can’t help anyone here…why didn’t she come up with one for me???,…I’ve rarely, if ever, looked back on it,…but still :grimacing: :sleeping:
Greetings,…

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