Conducting Research in Music at Yale University Library 

Online Audio Databases

Naxos Music Library and Classical Music Library contain much of the Western art music repertory.

DRAM - recordings from New World Records and other independent labels.

Smithsonian Global Sound - world and folk music; also includes spoken word and foreign language recordings.

American Song  - popular songs prior to 1960.

African American Song - includes jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives.

Naxos Music Library Jazz 

Afrocentric Voices - African American performers and composers and the vocal music forms they influenced, especially opera, art songs and Negro spirituals composed for concert performance.

Archival Sound Recordings from the British Library

Music vision - a daily classical music magazine that features reviews, interviews, and audio clips.

Virtual Concert Hall (ViCH) - a database of recordings that have been used in Yale courses.

Recording Pioneers is a "who's who of sound recorders" spanning roughly from 1878-1940

see also Sound Recordings on the web, Unlocking Historical Audio Collections

Records of selected Yale recordings are kept at the Music Library's circulation desk.

Finding Recordings

Yale Library's online catalog, Orbis, is the place to start. Try a simple keyword search such as: chopin AND mazurkas and "sound recording" (more example of keyword searches)

From the resulting list of titles, click on the number to the left of an entry to see more information.

To find the recording in the library take note of the Location, Call Number and Status.

Refine Your Search

TIP The problem with keyword search is that it will sometimes return all kinds of items like books, scores, etc.

How do you find only recordings then?
First, from the search screen, click on "more limits"
Then in "Item Type," select "Musical Sound Recordings" and click "set limits"

*Use CTRL key to select more than one option.

After setting limits enter a keyword search and click search.

TIP When the record displays, notice particularly the Uniform Title and Subject fields, which may suggest terms that will allow you to refine your search.

TIP There are "power terms" that you should try using in your searches. They will provide the best results. Examples of such terms include name of composers, names of record labels, numbers (e.g. opus numbers, BWV numbers, Köchel numbers, etc.), genre or form terms, distinctive titles, and names of instruments.

More Examples of other Keyword Searches

Additional examples of keyword searchers for finding musical works. You may add "sound recording" to any as a quick limit.

• brahms and 118 (will find records containing Brahms’s op. 118)
• pavan or pavane (will find records with either spelling)
• purcell not dido (will find works by Purcell, except for those with the word “Dido” in them.)
  
• “nozze di figaro” (using "" will find records containing the phrase)
• brahms and intermezz? (example of truncation using the question mark sign)
• trios and clarinet and bassoon