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Get help finding sources, narrowing or expanding your topic, and more!
Emerson Library holds thousands of CDs, LPs, and audio tapes of music in the classical, jazz, and world music genres. These collections are shelved on the main level of the Library between the EClassroom and the Library Conference Room.
See the tab entitled "Search tips" for help in looking up entries for sound recordings.
When looking up music, first ask yourself: Am I searching for something with a "distinctive" title or a "generic" title?
Some "distinctive" titles Some "generic" titles
Blues for Stephane Symphony no. 5
Quartet for the end of time Trio in D major
Saint Stephen and the Eleven Piano sonata
Using the "Keyword" search option is the best approach for finding music titles.
Enter as much of a distinctive title as you wish, but do not truncate the final word. For example, quartet for the end
Enter several elements for a generic title in order to reduce the likelihood of getting too many hits. Some examples:
beethoven symphony 9 bernstein (for a recording conducted by Leonard Bernstein)
beethoven symphony 9 universal (for a score of this symphony published by Universal Edition)
haydn quartet 76 3 string (for Haydn's quartet no. 77, which is his opus 76 no.3)
If you enter a search and receive a large number of hits, you can follow up by clicking on "modify search," which allows you to limit the results by medium, date of publication, language, etc. The 'modify search' screen also lists helpful hints regarding truncation, proximity searching, etc.
Tip: For arcane reasons, you may actually benefit by truncating generic forms. For 'symphony,' use 'symphon*'. For 'sonata' or 'sonatas,' use 'sonat*"