Tips for Searching Music in the UW Libraries Catalog
General Information
There are four possible points of access for classical music. You may need to try more than
one to find all of the places a particular piece may be described in the catalog. Below is an example
of the four possible places you can find versions of Mozart’s string quartet in D major, K. 155.
- 1. Specific uniform title for the piece
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791.
- [Quartets, strings, K. 155, D major]
- 2. Collective uniform title for larger grouping or complete set of pieces (e.g., complete string quartets or all of a distinctively titled song cycle)
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791.
- [Quartets, strings]
- 3. Collective uniform title in general form (e.g., Chamber music, Songs, Piano music, etc.)
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791.
- [Chamber music. Selections]
- 4. Collective uniform title for complete works of a single composer
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791.
- [Works]
- When searching for a specific piece of western classical music, it will be useful to
refer to The Basics of
Music Uniform Titles along with these instructions.
- Cross references (see and see also’s, e.g., Mendelssohn, Fanny, 1805-1847.
See Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn, 1805-1847.) are available in the phrase indexes of the
catalog, i.e., Author, Title and Subjects, but not when searching by Keyword.
- Flats are searched as small letter "b"; sharps are not searchable at this
time.
- Pop tunes are best searched as a phrase in a keywords search.
Phrase Indexes
(Author, Title, Subject)
Phrase searches begin with the first letter/word in the index and have to be
searched in the order input. If your search does not find an item in the catalog,
you will be dropped alphabetically in a browse list.
Advantages of using Phrase Indexes:
- See and See also references are available only in phrase indexes.
- If you are not sure of spelling, you will be dropped alphabetically into a list you can browse.
- You will not encounter as many items that do not match your intended search as in
keyword searching.
Author: One way to find scores, recordings, and videos is to search the composer’s name
as an Author, then enter your title in the “Locate in Results” box toward the end of the page.
Note: When limiting a search by format in the phrase indexes (e.g., musical sound recordings), you
lose the ability to search alphabetically in "Locate in results". You can jump further in the list by number of entries.
Title: If you know a specific title or how a title begins, you can use a
title search. Often, you will find references from a specific aria, for example, to the
work from which the aria comes.
-
Example: sheep may safely graze – see - Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750. [Jagdkantate. Schafe Können Sicher Weiden]
-
Note: You can input as much or little of the title as you know.
Subject: When searching a subject that is a musical form, e.g., opera, materials
about the subject is in the singular form Opera; materials that are the operas themselves (scores,
recordings, and videos) are in the plural form Operas. Exception: Musicals is always plural.
References are also available in the subject index which will help you expand or narrow your
searches by giving you other terminology used in the catalog.
Keywords search
- Any of the information from the phrase indexes (Author, Title, Subject) as well as notes
and publisher’s name are searchable as keywords.
- There are two places you can search keywords, one from the initial catalog screen and an
advanced keyword search you can retrieve by clicking on “advanced keyword” in the list of search options.
Using the advanced keyword mode is preferable for music searching.
- Be careful when using the proximity operators (NEAR and WITHIN); these will not search across
fields, e.g., mozart near zauberflote would NOT find items where mozart is in an author field and
zauberflote is in a title field.
- Adjacent words are searched as a phrase. Words connected by an operator (AND, OR, AND NOT) are
searched as separate terms.
Example: purcell and fairy queen (retrieves records that contain the word purcell
and the phrase “fairy queen”)
- You may specify a field to search, e.g., author in the advanced keyword search
mode by selecting the field from the pull-down menu at the left of the search boxes.
- Distinctive titles are cataloged using the language of the composer’s original title.
If you try a title in English, for example, mozart and magic flute, you may not find all
of the items in our collection. If you don’t know the original title, try the title you know.
Look for the original title in the “uniform title” field or the “Other author” field and try a
new search, e.g., Mozart’s “Magic flute” is entered under “Zauberflote”.
- The more distinctive the pieces of information you use, the more successful a search in
Keywords will be.
Remember that “Keywords” searches your terms in any of the fields indexed here (see above)
or
any field group you specify. When searching form titles, e.g., concertos, sonatas, etc.,
you can often retrieve unwanted items. If you do not use distinctive information such as
opus or thematic catalog numbers and retrieve a set too large to easily browse, you may
want to try limiting your search by format or try using the phrase indexes.
-
Example 1: mozart and bilson
- (retrieves items that have both names in the
records, in this case, all recordings of Malcolm Bilson playing Mozart)
- Example 2: basie and discommotion
- (retrieves items that have both words in the
records, in this case, all recordings of Count Basie playing the tune, Discommotion)
-
Example 3: purcell and hogwood [limited by Publication Type=Printed Music Scores]
- (retrieves items with the two names, in this case scores of Purcell’s music edited by Christopher
Hogwood)
-
Example 4: beethoven and sonatas and piano and eb major
- (retrieves all items that
include Beethoven’s name and have the words sonatas and piano and Eb major in the record; will retrieve
some records that are not Beethoven’s piano sonatas)
-
Example 5: mozart and k 550
- (retrieves all versions of Mozart’s K. 550 in our
collection as well as any works about K. 550, you could limit to musical sound recordings or music
scores if you wish)
- (retrieves all sound recordings which have this phrase (title) in the records)
-
Example 6: my favorite things
- [limited by Publication Type=Musical Sound Recordings]
(retrieves all sound recordings which have this phrase (title) in the records)
D. Pierce 9/20/04
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Last modified: Friday March 21, 2008
