Find Popular Music and Jazz

Sound recordings and scores (sheet music) are cataloged in EUCLID.  If you don’t find what you need, please call the Heilbrun Library staff at 404-727-1777 or e-mail us at genmus@libcat1.cc.emory.edu.

• Find composers or performers with an author search.

• Find titles of albums, musicals, and other major works (not songs) with a title search.

• Find recordings of songs with a search everything search.

  To search the words as a phrase

  Use the adjacent operator between words:  moon adj river

  or

  Put quotes around the title:  "moon river"

  (slightly less precise search)

   

• To find just CDs, scores, etc., use search limits.

• Find different types of music by using subject searches.  Below is a sample of subject headings used in library catalogs. (Punctuation not needed in searches.)

   

  Blues (Music)

  Bop (Music)

  Cool jazz

  Country music

  Gospel music

  Heavy metal (Music)

  Jazz

  Motion picture music [used for film music]

  Musicals

  Rap (Music)  [Hip-hop is used for books about the topic, not for music.]

  Rhythm and blues music

  Soul music

  Tango (Dance)  [Finds books on Tango]

  Tangos  [Finds recordings and scores of Tangos]

  Zydeco music

• Make your searches more precise by using operators and truncation.

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Find Classical Music

Searching music in the catalog can require specialized knowledge.  Feel free to contact us for assistance.  Call (404) 727-1777 or e-mail us at genmus@libcat1.cc.emory.edu.

Basic Concepts

• Use Complex Search to combine terms such as author and title.  (Composers and performers are treated as authors.)

Finds Beethoven’s piano sonatas edited by Erwin Ratz.

• In Quick Search, use and when combining author with title.

copland and rodeo     GOOD SEARCH

copland rodeo            WON'T FIND EVERYTHING

 

• Use plurals for sonatas, symphonies, and other nondistinctive titles, even when searching for only one piece.

  examples:

sonatas no. 5  

symphonies no. 3

quartets no. 15

etudes

Why?  You’ll usually miss holdings when using the singular term. Learn about uniform (standardized) titles here.  They’re critical to effective music searching.

• Use the original language for works with distinctive titles.

examples:

Matthauspassion for St. Matthew Passion

Zauberflote for the Magic Flute

(Drop initial articles—[Die] Zauberflote—in foreign titles.)

Why?  So you don't retrieve just partial holdings.  Get familiar with uniform titles and you’ll be able to find the “correct” form easily through EUCLID.  Read about uniform titles.

 

• For more thorough searching, and if you can't find the work—
  • Search for collections containing the piece—e.g., all sonatas by the composer.
  • If it’s part of a larger work, look for the title of that work. 
  • Find out if we have the complete works of the composer.
  • Ask for help. 

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Use Uniform Titles

Uniform titles provide consistent, standardized ways of identifying individual compositions and groups of compositions. This makes it possible to find works all scores and recordings of a work without having to look up every conceivable title the piece might have been called.  A library catalog record gives both the work's Title—meaning the title used by the publisher—and its Uniform Title.

Works with Distinctive Titles

If the work's title is distinctive, the uniform title consists of its original title (from the manuscript or first edition) in the original language. 

Examples of distinctive titles:

Works with Form or Genre Titles

If the composer's original title is simply a form name or genre (with or without key and number), the title is considered nondistinctive.  The first word of the uniform title is the form or genre, and it's always in the plural except when the composer wrote only one sonata, nocturne, etc. 

Examples of form and genre terms used in uniform titles:

The instrumentation, number (ordinal, opus, and or catalog number) and key are often added to the form name.

Collections of Works in the Same Medium

This type of uniform title is used when one recording or score consists of various types of pieces that are all for the same medium.

Examples:

Choral music

Guitar music

Violin music

Vocal music

 

Complete Works of Individual Composers

The uniform title Works is used for a set of the complete works of a composer.  Note that many editions of complete works are still in the process of being published—volume by volume.  Look at the bottom of the EUCLID record to see which volumes are actually in the library's collection.  

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Limit Search Results by Format (CDs, scores, etc.) or Location

From the entry screen in EUCLID, click on the yellow COMPLEX SEARCH button on the right-hand side.

Scroll down to see the SEARCH LIMITS area.

• For CDs only, use itemtype: CD-SOUND. *

• For scores, use itemtype: SCORE. *

• For scores plus any sound recording formats, use format: MUSIC & RECORDINGS. (This would be useful for excluding books from your results.)

• For films in any format (VHS, DVD, etc.), use format: VISUAL MATERIALS.

• For DVDs in the lending collection only, use itemtype: DVD-LEND

• To find only items in Heilbrun, Woodruff, and Chemistry Libraries, use library: GENERAL.

• To find videos containing a specific language, use the language limit .

*HINT: When using search limits you may miss items in EUCLID which are "in-process" (not yet cataloged). These items are all classified as item-type "book" until they are cataloged.

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Refine Searches with Operators and Truncation

Combine terms using the operators listed below. Generally, operators are used in "Search Everything" searches. (In Complex Search, Search Everything is called Word or Phrase.) However, you can use them in any field (author, title, etc.), provided you have not specified a "Browsing" or "Exact" search.

If you do not enter any operator between search words, the system automatically supplies the operator "same."

For example: mendelssohn and elijah and shaw could be used in Search Everything to find a recording of Mendelssohn's "Elijah" conducted by Robert Shaw.

To search an operator as a word, put it in quotes. For example:
"not" love alone
aus tiefer "not"

Truncation Symbol ($)

Use the truncation symbol $ to find variant forms or spellings.  For example, perotin$2 finds both Perotin and Perotinus.  (The numeral 2 limits the number of additional characters. Adding a numeral is optional.)

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