Research Guides: Music: Searching

Searching the Library's collections

When searching for scores or recordings in the Library's collections, go to the library search on the web page, and enter words that describe the piece of music. The most useful words for searching are the composer's last name, opus number, index number, instrumentation, or distinctive words from the title (for instance, "mozart concertos k 456" or "verdi donna mobile"). Once the results appear, look to the right for "Tweak your results" (or the funnel icon on mobile devices), choose "Resource Type" then "Scores" or "Audio". This limits your search results to the desired format.

When searching for information about a composer, individual piece of music, or a musical topic, do the same as above: enter words about the composer, piece, or topic. If you are searching for information about a composer or piece, you may find it useful to limit the results. Look to the right for "Tweak your results" (or the funnel icon on mobile devices), choose "Resource Type" then "Articles" or "Books". This will screen out any scores or recordings by the composer that the search retrieves.

Try it in search box below:

Searching for scores and recordings from web sites

Petrucci Music Library at IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project)
Petrucci Music Library at IMSLP is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores and recordings. It now contains over 525,000 scores and 63,000 recordings for over 160,000 works by over 19,000 composers. You can either search for specific pieces, or scan all items by composer, time period, or instrumentation.

Please note: public domain scores are largely published before 1927, and thus they are often not the best or most accurate musical texts, especially of music written before 1800. You should always compare editions you find here with more recently-published editions, available in the Library or through interlibrary loan.
Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL)
The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), is an Internet-based free sheet music website which specializes in choral music. The CPDL a collection of music scores and other supporting files (such as midi or other sound files) which can be freely downloaded and used. Most of the scores on CPDL are modern editions based on older works whose copyright has lapsed (or which are otherwise in the public domain), but some scores are newly composed and offered for download by the composer. You can search by individual piece, scan all the pieces by a particular composer, or do a "multi-category" search to search by time era, genre, voicing.

Please note: as with IMSLP, you should always compare public-domain editions that you find here with more recently-published editions, available in the Library or through interlibrary loan, to be sure you have the most accurate musical text.
Naxos Music Library
This music streaming service offers the complete catalogues or selected recordings of over 640 labels. It contains more than 152,000 CD-length recordings equivalent to 2,300,800 tracks uploaded, with addition of over than 800 CD-length recordings every month. And, unlike "free" streaming services, there are no annoying commercials to sit through! You can search by individual piece, or scan all pieces by a composer, performer, or record label.

Searching for journal articles

The Library Search above provides access to many journal articles in music. But for a thorough search of journal articles in music, it is best to search for articles in the following journal indexes.

RILM Abstracts covers music history and theory/analysis in depth; Music Index covers all aspects of music; ERIC covers music education and pedagogy. Some of the articles you find will have links to the full text of the article, and some must be ordered from other libraries via ILLIAD. JSTOR is an online archive of full-text journals in all subject areas, but it is easy to search its contents for music topics.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Covers primarily music history, theory, and analysis. Indexes journal articles published 1967 to the present.
Music Index
Covers all aspects of music. Indexes journal articles published 1970 to the present.
ERIC
Covers all aspects of education, including music education. Indexes journal articles and "gray literature" in music published 1966 to the present.
JSTOR
Provides the full text of journal articles from a selected set of journals in many disciplines.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global Full Text
Provides a very large collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day and offering full text for graduate works added since 1997, along with selected full text for works written prior to 1997. It contains a significant amount of new international dissertations and theses both in citations and in full text.