How to Source Information for your Music Essay

Igor Stravinsky

When the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Whittaker Library consulted students recently, we heard that students find it most useful to receive targeted information about topics being studied or written about.  

GENERAL HELP WITH RESOURCES FOR MUSIC HISTORY 3 ESSAY

... So we’ve been looking at the Music History 3 essay questions to see how our online resources could help you.  Just about everything you need is here, available 24:7

•  Online databases and music streaming: http://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/databases/, 
•  Electronic journals: http://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/e-journals/)

FINDING MUSIC

1. You can often find a score online.   Use your computer’s snipping tool to copy little excerpts for examples.  We subscribe to Alexander Street Press Classical Scores Library (accessible online wherever you are), and Library Music Source (accessible on site).  You probably already know about IMSLP (the Petrucci library), too. 
2.  If a piece of music has an English title as well as its original title, search both.

FINDING INFORMATION

1.  You can look for information in Groves Dictionary – it’s part of Oxford Music Online. 
2.  You can also find useful information on JSTOR.  Be clever with your searching – if the essay is asking you to link concepts (eg Liszt and literature), make sure your search terms reflect that. 
3.  If  JSTOR hasn’t got what you want, don’t give up. Try RILM (music abstracts).  HINT: The advanced search will get better results than the simple one!  The SmartText searching option is good for finding adjacent words in a phrase.  If you only read material in English, or another language, you can factor that into your search, too. 
4.  There’s nothing wrong with older literature, if it informs the question you are answering. However, do remember that opinions may have changed, if an article is very old indeed!! 
5. Search keywords in our catalogue.  Start with a precise search (eg the composer’s name and  perhaps the piece) then broaden it if you don’t get what you need.  If you don’t find the right information under a composer’s name, try MUSIC HISTORY - and maybe the century you’re interested in.  If you’re off-site, limit your results to e-books to see if there’s anything you can read online.  

FINDING RECORDINGS

1. You can stream music by Naxos or Alexander Street Press Music Library.  Check our e-resources page.  http://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/databases/

ELECTRONIC JOURNALS - PREPARE TO BE AMAZED

1. There are also plenty of electronic journals on the e-journals page.  Start by looking for suitable journals under the List of Music Titles.  http://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/e-journals/

Sourcing old Scottish Songs - Petrucci Music Library

Beethoven and Haydn both arranged large quantities of Scottish songs for the publisher George Thomson.  Maybe you're looking for classical settings for solo, duet or even vocal trio for an encore in a recital - these could be suitable choices.

How to find old editions online, though?  Unless you want to buy a very expensive rare edition, IMSLP (The Petrucci Music Library) may be your best port of call. 

 IMSLP and Petrucci are the same website.  They describe themselves this way:- "IMSLP stands for International Music Score Library Project. The logo is a capital letter A, taken from the very first press-printed book of polyphonic music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, published in 1501. Its printer, Ottaviano Petrucci, is this library's namesake."

Here are a few examples of what you'll find:-

• Beethoven - Some of these havemore than one singer
• Beethoven – three singers
Tchaikovsky – Scottish ballad

• Try Soprano Baritone Scottish

(Just another helpful blogpost from your friends at the Whittaker Library, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland!)

Celebrating the Bard

Robert Burns

• Vocal scores in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Music
• CDs (we just searched on Burns as Author.  More results using a keyword search.)
• Robert Burns in our book collections

Late 18th/early 19th century collaborators with Burns included James Johnson (of Scots Musical Museum fame), and George Thomson.  Thomson got Burns' lyrics set by famous Continental musicians like Haydn, Beethoven and Kozeluch.

You could also look him up in one of our databases, like Oxford Music Online (for info), Naxos or Classical Music Library (streaming services).  See what's available to our staff and students here.

Celebrating Burns

• The BBC has a fantastic page for Robert Burns (biography, 716 works, and all about Burns Night)
• Steve Jones' audio slide show inspired by Robert Burns (a page on the BBC site)
• Scottish Storytelling Centre - Burnsfest this week (w/c 22nd January 2012)
• Scottish Poetry Library - similarly a significant week for Burns enthusiasts here.
• Echoes from the Vault - the St Andrew's University Library Special Collections blog has today posted about Burns. A truly beautiful page.

On this day: Beethoven anniversary too!

16th December, 1770: Happy Birthday Beethoven

The Royal Opera House reminds us today is a significant day!

Born on this day in 1770. To celebrate, a clip of his only opera - Fidelio

Twitter handle: RoyalOperaHouse

Beethoven manuscripts and sketches digitised

Beethoven MSS and sketches online at two American libraries:- 

• Morgan Library and Museum. Music Manuscripts online.  Here's the Beethoven direct link.
• The Juilliard Manuscript Collection.  Again, here's the Beethoven link.

I think you'll agree with me these are fantastic resources, and they'll be great when Christina Guillaumier leads our undergraduates' research into original Beethoven sources. I'll "catalogue" both websites online, so the links will be permanently in our catalogue when you need them.

And how did I get these gems?  I asked my music library colleagues on Twitter, and got a quick response from the Yale Music Library.  (and that, my friends, is the value of so-called social networking.  Or should we call it socio-professional networking?)

NB RSAMD becomes Royal Conservatoire of Scotland tomorrow, 1st September.  The catalogue link will change to http://prism.talis.com/rcs/

Beethoven Haus, Bonn - Digital archives

• Beethoven Haus - Digital archives

If you're seeking digital Beethoven material, why not start here?

Image from the Beethoven-Haus Bonn homepage

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies

Welcome to the Beethoven Center at San Jose State University - a useful source of information about Ludwig van Beethoven.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Why don't readers ask?!

In a fit of pure introspection, I tried to work out what my motivations were when I went to Waterstones and W H Smiths today. Obviously, I can’t tap into my subconscious, so the exercise was hardly scientific.


Amazon was promoting Grace Dent, How to leave Twitter. I wanted to see it before deciding whether to buy. I’d also come across Maureen Callahan's Poker Face: the Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga, about Lady Gaga’s astounding success at self-promotion. Again, I wanted to assess how much of it actually was about self-promotion.  I started in Waterstones. But where would I find these titles?

• What did the Twitter book come under?  No catalogue, no classification to help me. A mass-appeal paperback on promotion (piles on tables, special displays)? Autobiographical? Humour? No sign of it. Did I ask for help? Not initially. Finally, I learned it wasn’t currently in stock. As for Lady Gaga - I found the music section, but that title wasn’t there. (Mind you, there was an interesting book about Beethoven - Harvey Sachs, The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824. I have an obsessive research interest in musical culture in the 1820’s…)

Given that I wanted to see the books, I gave up and went to Smiths, where I faced the same conundrum, although I asked sooner!

But why don’t we want to ask? Reticence? Pride? Reluctance to fall prey to a pushy salesperson?  Transfer all this to a library, though, and the parameters change.

• Catalogues available to the readers, for a start.
• A more detailed classification, too - at least in an academic library. I spotted the new Beethoven book on a promotional display at Waterstones, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have found it. On the other hand, books on the same narrow subject will be side by side on a college bookshelf.
• No financial risk - and if you don’t like the book, you just return it, read or unread. There’s a lot to be said for libraries!

So, that leaves us with my initial question: Why won’t we ask? Would you ask for help finding something in a bookshop? In a library?  If the librarians were more visible, would that change things at all? Should we be more proactive, or sit in our office like books on shelves, waiting to be consulted?


Which is one of the reasons why I blog.  Someone commented on Twitter the other day that libraries aren’t just books - they’re also people. Knowledgeable people, who not only know their subjects, but also know how to interrogate a catalogue!  (See 'Libraries are about People', by The Wikiman.)  But we need to reach out to our readers, who perhaps don't realise our "unique selling point".


So I’ll share something with you right now. I ordered the Twitter and Beethoven books on Amazon at home just now. I’ll let you know if they’re any good. Promise!

Alasdair Young lunchtime piano concert Bearsden Cross, 19th February 2011

Saturday 19th February 2011, at 11.30 am

Lunchtime Recital by pianist Alasdair Young.