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This guide was created for use by staff and patrons of the Loeb Music Library. Locating music for individual song titles can be a challenge since many anthologies and collections do not have contents listings in the online catalog - HOLLIS. Since our patrons often need to locate single songs, this guide serves as a beginning finding guide.
Browsing for songs to perform
Musical Theatre
The Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology
Collections of solos and duets for various voice ranges. A keyword search brings these up in HOLLIS; the scores are shelved at Mus 502.75 (and following). This series has thorough contents notes in HOLLIS, so searching by song title will also work. See also the complete contents list for the series.
Contemporary Singing Actor
Another collection of songs from recently-produced musicals (1980-present). A keyword search brings these up in HOLLIS; the scores are shelved at Mus 502.79-86. This set also has thorough contents notes in HOLLIS.
Broadway Musicals, Show by Show
Seven volumes, organized by decade, covering musicals produced between 1891 and 1988. HOLLIS does not include contents notes for this series.
Other helpful subject word searches in HOLLIS
Finding a specific song
First, search HOLLIS for the title, or, for songs or arias from musicals or operas, for the score of the complete work (e.g.: to find copies of "Ol' Man River," look for both that title and for Show Boat).
Online song indexes
These websites provide a way to search in the contents of songbooks, anthologies, and collections. Find the listing for a song, then use HOLLIS to search for the titles of the collections in which it's printed.
Warning: these databases are not comprehensive, and Harvard does not own all of the anthologies they index.
- ASU Libraries Song Index
- California Library Systems Cooperative Song Index: Indexes over 180,000 songs - mostly popular - from over 2000 musical sources
- The Folk Song Index: An Oberlin College Libraries and Sing Out! Collaboration. Indexes over 2225 anthologies and 42,000 songs, with a focus on English-language traditional music from around the world
- University of North Texas Music Special Collections Catalog: An index of popular music and songs from the library's sheet music collections
- University of Washington Libraries - Popular Song Database
- UT Song Index: Indexes about 50,000 songs in over 1500 anthologies (maintained by the George F. DeVine Music Library, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Online scores and sheet music
Digital sheet music collections are good places to look for nineteenth and early twentieth century songs. The collections listed below are a starting point for finding online scores.
Online Resources for Music Scholars:
-- Sheet Music and Multi-Media Resources: links to many other online music sites. Look for sites with Sheet Music, Songs, or Singing in the title, but read the "About the Collection" scope notes to save yourself search time.
- Library of Congress: Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800-1922: 9000 pieces of music, including both classical works and popular songs
- Library of Congress: African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920: 1300 titles representing African-Americana from the sheet music collections of Brown University
- Sheet Music Consortium: sheet music from the collections of the Library of Congress, Duke University, Indiana University, the Maine Music Box, Johns Hopkins University, the National Library of Australia, and UCLA
- 19th-Century California Sheet Music (UC Berkeley): 2700 titles published in California between 1852 and 1900
- Digital Archive of Popular American Music (UCLA): selected sheet music from UCLA's 450,000 item Archive of Popular American Music (1790-present). As well as more general popular music, a particular strength of the collection is music composed for theatre, film, and television
- Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music (Johns Hopkins): over 29,000 pieces of music (1790-present); music published after 1923 is not available online
- Historic American Sheet Music (Duke): 3042 titles, published between 1850 and 1920
- Mutopia: downloadable sheet music based on public-domain sources
- Online Music Scores (maintained by Gordon J. Callon, Acadia University): a directory of links to free online scores
- Duke University Libraries: A directory of libraries and archives with significant sheet music collections. Some collections provide online indexes or scores.
- Indiana University: Databases Including Scores/Sheet Music: A non-comprehensive list of websites with online sheet music
Print indexes (in the Music Library's Aldrich Reading Room)
Popular song index / Patricia Pate Havlice. Methuen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 S3 H4 & suppls. 1978, 1984, 1989
Great song thesaurus / Roger Lax. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 S3 L4 1989
SongCite: an index to popular songs / William Goodfellow. New York: Garland, 1995.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 P63 G65 1995
Song finder: A title index to 32,000 popular songs in collections, 1854-1992 / Gary Ferguson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 S3 F47 1995
Songs in collections: an index / Desiree de Charms. [Detroit]: Information Service, [1966].
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 S3 D37 1966
[Covers collections published 1940-57, and includes some pop songs]
Song Index of the Enoch Pratt Free Library / Ellen Luchinsky. New York: Garland, 1998.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128 S3 L665 1998
[includes many types of songbooks]
These titles index recordings, but could provide useful information:
Popular music, 1900-1919: an annotated guide to American popular songs / Barbara Cohen-Stratyner. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1988.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML120.U5.C6 1988
Popular music, 1920-1979: a revised cumulation / Nat Shapiro and Bruce Pollock, eds. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1985.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML120 U5 S5 1985 v.1-3
[Annotated index of over 18,000 American popular songs]
Popular music: an annotated index of American popular songs. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1974-
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML120.U5 S5 Suppl. (vol. 7-20, 1970-1995)
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML120.U5 S5 Suppl. (vol. 21-27, 1996-2002)
[An annual index; continues Popular music, 1920-1979]
Musical theater encyclopedias
The American musical theatre song encyclopedia / Thomas S. Hischak. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML102.M88 H59 1995
Broadway musicals, show by show / Stanley Green. 5th ed., rev. and updated by Kay Green. Milwaukee: H. Leonard, 1996.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML1711 .G735 1996
The encyclopedia of the musical theatre / Kurt Gänzl. 2nd ed. New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML102.M88 G3 2001
The Rodgers and Hammerstein encyclopedia / Thomas S. Hischak. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.
Location: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML102.M88 H595 2007
In addition the library owns many other relevant reference books. To find more try Hollis subject word searches (for example):
- Musicals -- Encyclopedias
- Popular Music -- Encyclopedias
See more sources specific to Musical Theater.