Resources for Singers: Finding Repertoire for your Voice
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How to Find Songs (because it can be kind of difficult)
Five tips when searching for a song title
1. Phrase searchIf you know the title of the song you need to find, put the title in quotation marks. This forces the search to return results that contain that entire phrase, and not parts of it. Example: If Music Be the Food of Love vs. "If Music Be the Food of Love" |
2. Search using unique termsSometimes song titles are entered into the catalog differently (e.g., "When I am Laid" vs. When I am Laid in Earth"), so sometimes extracting the most distinctive words and using them for your search leads to success; especially if you can match those terms with the composer's name. Example: earth AND laid AND purcell vs. when i am laid in earth |
3. Search for your voice typeSpecific voice types (soprano, tenor, mezzo, baritone, bass) can all be good search terms. Add "high voice" or "low voice" to your search to broaden its scope and retrieve more relevant items. Example: songs AND (soprano OR "high voice") |
4. Search for a larger work in addition to the song titleMany songs are part of larger works - an aria in an opera or a movement in a song cycle. Some catalog records will contain a list of those songs and some will not (especially operas). Try searching for the larger work in addition to the individual song. You'll often need to pull the item from the shelf to confirm the song is included in the larger work. Example: "una voce poco fa" and "marriage of figaro" (probably add vocal score to your search to avoid full scores) |
5. Don't ignore collectionsSongs are often published in collection (looking at you, 20 something Italian Songs and Arias), so be sure to look in catalog records to see if the song you seek is part of a larger collection. Collections are often organized around a composer, voice type, or some other specific feature. Example: "Ne Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" is in the Twenty-four Italian Songs and Arias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. |
