Syncing without iCloud I have a household with an iMac that has 1 account that automatically logs on, and 1 iTunes account.

The itunes account has 2 different libraries, although the only difference is some of the (non-DRM) music.

There is an iPad shared by many people, and a phone used by one person.

What is the easiest way to sync things like music between all machines while keeping things like notes on the phone private, but still being able to back them up to the iMac?

Would prefer not to use iCloud if possible, as it looks complicated for the people I am setting it up for.
iCloud itself doesn't sync music; iTunes Match does that.

A good solution might be to use iTunes Match to sync all the music between computers. In my experience with iTunes Match, all the complexity is up-front; after the initial upload, getting new devices on it and using them is super easy.

With Match enabled, just sync the iPhone to the iMac like you would have in pre-iOS 5 days and the notes won't leave the two of them if you don't use iCloud.