How a Musician uses Travelers Notebooks

As a stationary nerd, I've been through a majority of journals, planners and note-taking systems throughout my life. So when I caught sight of the Midori notebooks (now known as Travelers notebooks) I was instantly in love. Two years later and it's still the main system I use to keep track of life, take class notes and work as a music composer.

The travelers notebook system has quite the community of journal loving people who make their books into works of art and ultra-efficient planners, designed specifically to their daily needs. The leather's made to last a lifetime and will have a beautiful character as it handles the wear of your adventures. I'm someone who completely freezes up to write in a beautiful journal because I feel that anything I put in it will simply not be perfect or important enough, but that's not a problem with this type of journal. I get to keep the beautiful exterior and swap out the paper inserts when I'm done scribbling; it's like getting a fresh book every time.

Although the notebook system is used quite commonly by writers and artists, I didn't see much online about how a musician would use travelers notebooks, and I thought I may as well share my tips on how I customised this journal for my music life.

I always end up needing staff paper, either during class or if a good melody idea pops up in the practice room. I have staff paper available in my travelers notebook in two ways:

1) Cutting down strips of regular staff paper: I keep these in the plastic zip pocket and glue them directly into my notes.

2) Mini staff paper booklet: Later on, I found these little booklets at my local music store. They're normally quite cheap (I think this one was 2 Euro) and saves me snipping up pieces of my regular staff paper (especially if you're someone who doesn't like having little pieces of paper floating around).

Currently I still use both types. The strips for tidy class notes and the booklet for composing brief melodies or chord progressions on the go.

My habit of seeing a cool event flier or jam sessions, shoving it into my jacket pocket and not remembering about it until long after the event has happened is no more! Keeping track of both my business cards and those from other musicians, poster cards of upcoming bands and pamphlets for uni workshop sessions are much more manageable now (In the future I'd like to get a Midori Monthly Planner insert to add to this system and directly pencil in an overview of live concerts and events).

Guitar picks, backup strings and tuners can be tucked into the envelope inserts or clipped directly onto the leather cover.

Freelance artists and musicians often have to put a hefty amount of work into maintaining a social media presence. Instagram stories, facebook posts, maintaining my project blog and website are all things I need to schedule into my week like additional homework. Lately, I've been turning to my travelers journal more to jot down post ideas when they come to mind. (I normally collect pictures and title ideas throughout the week and then on Saturday batch schedule them to go out at optimal times for the following week. For anyone trying to keep a regular social media schedule I highly recommend trying it that way, maybe with the help of an app like Later or Buffer).

I also like to make follow up notes of how well a post is recieved by my audience: Motivational quotes from a famous musicians? Very little interaction. A short video of me singing an original song? A surprising flood of likes and comments.

Lately I've been getting back into the mood of writing and journalling. Although I don't have a lot to say about my day to day life (work, class, study, compose, repeat) there are still moments I'd like to capture. I've already got a habit of hanging onto concert tickets as memorabilia, so putting those into a journal where I document fun or interesting events would be perfect- and maybe a more traditional use- for a travelers journal.

In the end, the great thing is- whether I'm dealing with tasks as a musician, student or just a regular adult- the travelers notebook adapts effortlessly into any aspect of my life.