There are cabinets with pull-outs made specifically to store sheet music. I'm only a casual player so my music is stacked in a filing cabinet drawer.

Fun2b, a piano store nearby recently closed and when I went in for the empty-the-storefront sale, their music cabinets were already sold, darn it. And I didn't have the minivan to cart home the huge panels with harpsichords on them! I did, however get some vintage holiday music I'll use for decor in December, and tragedy-comedy masks they'd had as decor for my other son, an actor.

But come to think of it, I picked up a black (matches the piano!) metal desktop storage drawer set from the clearance corner The Container Store a while back. I meant it for my son's apartment, but it should work for the younger one's and my sheet music. It's missing a drawer (that's why it was in clearance and cheap) which is fine as the space can hold the longer sheet music.

Thanks for the mental nudge. Now to find a place to put the thing, and maybe a file box on feet for the rest? Any other ideas?

It kind of depends on how much you've got. I have a friend who uses lateral legal-sized file cabinets. I have an armoire with the pieces stacked on the shelves, since I'm not tidy and I know i would never refile them properly. So I have a solo claissical, solo pop, ensemble classical, ensemble pop, etc stack instead.

Oh, this is pretty much it, except for the big hardbound books that will go on a bookshelf. But DS keeps printing off new video game music, and he's always got a new piece for lessons. And tidy? Please. I can't take a match to it, so Probably a bin system would work best to at least get the music in the right pile, but it's no guarantee. I've pretty much just let him keep his active music on the floor where he can grab it quickly. Hmm, maybe nice wooden office inboxes for his more active music? Can I keep those on top of the piano?

My next invention, a big tablet screen built into the piano to display music, and let you write on it with a stylus.

I have music stored in a chest of drawers, and in an antique trunk. The drawers in the chest are wide enough to lay 2 stacks music books (or sheet music) flat, side by side lengthwise. The never used music goes in the trunk. I have a lot of music, as my mother was an accomplished musician.
When my 3 kids were all taking lessons, their current music went in a rattan magazine rack next to the piano.

What about something like this:

My grandma had a single-width but taller cabinet like this to organize her sheet music. Google "literature holder" or "mail sorter."

I know that Target, Container Store and probably office supply stores carry covered boxes that will hold 8-1/2" x 11" paper. Those could be used for the music your son prints off from the Internet. A stack of two or three on the piano in a decorative color could work. In fact, some of the other items from this product line could work to corral the often-used items. I'll link the products below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Container Store Office Storage

Also, I have a friend who uses the Stanton wide carts from home decorators for his piano music:

Here is a link that might be useful: storage carts

Hmm, I like the Stantons, they look like the IKEA Alex we just got for older DS's first apartment. I like the one with the cabinet, too, could hold books? A clarinet? Gotta measure! The mail sorter is good, but this is in our living room. And the Container Store, well, that's my favorite store :)

Meanwhile, I borrowed some nesting tables from elsewhere in the house to hold the Bisley and the basket, so at least music isn't willy-nilly about the room.

My mother kept her music in a Canterbury Rack. Hers was mahogany and a little formal. It's really just a fancy magazine rack.

Here is a link that might be useful: Canterbury Racks

Our bench seat lifted up and music was stored there.

We have an antique music cabinet very much like the one in the link. If you've got a limited quantity of sheet music -- none of it in oversize folios -- it works great. Everyone can have his assigned shelf or shelves. Of course, most of my music is back in bankers' boxes now, because my DH has consumed the music cabinet shelves with uncountable quantities of sax and clarinet reeds, mouthpieces, ligatures and other assorted . . . stuff.

It's just one more thing he has to make room for in the man cave in the new house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Antique tambour door music cabinet

These are some great ideas, and they all trump my kludgey basket, drawer, and Bisley LOL! That tambour door cabinet is lovely, I like that the front of the drawers are open, and I'd totally have gone to Yorkshire to pick it up (and those little lions guarding the door behind it) and taken some walks in the countryside along the way. The Canterbury racks are something I'd never thought of, I see them from time to time at the bigger church rummage sales around here. Cyn, our bench has storage, too, very handy, and my brothers and I stuffed it so full the sagging bottom will now hold only frothy Burt Bacharach sheet music, nothing heavy like Beethoven :)

Of course, as Kip Tindell of The Container Store said, containers are,just tools, it's up to you (or at least, my son) to USE them LOL!

BTW jakabedy, DS lost his clarinet at school on Friday, so if your DH has a spare, we are in the market :) (Fortunately, it was a very old, very inexpensive to us instrument from a friend, and we are looking for a move-up instrument anyway, but wanted to keep the old one -- with its brand-new ligature $ -- for marching band. Sigh.)

Hanging files in portable boxes since we've moved so often in the past few years. I really hadn't thought about incorporating permanent music storage into the area around the piano in the new house. It is a good topic, and one that I wish I would have thought of earlier.