Searching Music Index Online
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Music Index Online indexes over 640 international music periodicals. A broad range of subjects is covered in addition to book reviews, reviews of music recordings, tapes and performances. First performances and obituaries are noted. Coverage is from 1979 - date.
BASIC SEARCHING
The following are the most common types of searches and search limits.
Search by word or phrases, connecting terms with and, or, not, adj, or near.
Examples:
frottola
bowing and techniques
john adj cage (searches the two words as a phrase)
choral near3 music (finds the two terms within 3 words of each other)
parody or contrafacta or contrafactum
Quotation marks may also be used to search adjacent terms as phrases.
"sonata form" or "string bass"
Search by Author
When you know either the last name or the first and last names of the author of an article. Author searches can also be done in the Expert Search mode.
Examples:
gauldin
robert near gauldin (finds "robert gauldin")
Important tips for Searching:
- The search engine is not case sensitive - no capitalization is necessary.
- OMIT ANY PUNCTUATION J. Richard Friedman will result in hits.
- Inverted names [james, william] separated by a coma must be enclosed in quotes. "james, william"
ADVANCED SEARCHING
Truncation --
Use the $ sign to retrieve variant endings of a word stem.
concert$ retrieves concerto, concertos, concerti, concertino
The ? is a "wildcard" and represents a single character:
enesc? retrieves enesco and enescu
theat?? retrieves theatre and theater
Phrases --
Use adj or quotation marks (" ") to search multiple terms as phrases.
piano adj concerto or "piano concerto"
Boolean Operators --
Use and, or, not to expand or limit searches.
Examples:
jazz and blues
jazz or blues
jazz not blues
Nesting --
Search terms may be grouped by parentheses ( ) to expand searches:
(jazz or blues) and (ellington or franklin)
Proximity Searching (near) --
Use to find one term with a specific distance of another.
Examples:
funding near arts
chorus near3 symphony [finds chorus within 3 words of symphony]
EXPERT SEARCHING
The EXPERT search mode provides options for more specific searching. Some of the most common types of limitations are:
- Limiting to a particular document type: article, dissertation, book review, etc.
- Limiting to a particular language
- Limiting to publication dates [years].
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This page is maintained by:
Dr. W. Dan Hardin, Music Librarian
Last Updated: January, 2002 | | |
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