Music Searching Tutorial: Part 7: Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Described as the world’s premier online music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship. The resource contains 3 main reference works:

1. Grove Music Online
2. The Oxford Dictionary of Music
3. The Oxford Companion to Music.

Searches are full text so results will bring up articles specifically on the person or topic as the heading of the article as well as articles where the name or term(s) appears in the full text. Because you are searching full text it can be helpful to use phrase searching (quotation marks around a phrase " ") to reduce the false hits in your results. 

For example a search on the name mozart brings up several articles with Mozart in the title or heading of the article including articles on the Mozart Family, Mozart's father, Mozart's sister, Mozart's wife, Mozart's children, but also a lengthy article on Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus. Of course, these are followed by numerous articles where mozart is somewhere mentioned in the text of the article. 

Many of the articles, like that on Mozart is very lengthy and a great source for background and a good concise summer of the composer and his works. A unique feature of the database is that there are works lists for many composers which are very helpful. In the case of Mozart there is a lengthy works list which also identifies the vol number of the complete works which contains the work. 

Example of Full Text Article for Mozart

At the beginning of the works list is a few paragraphs explaining the editions for the complete works used. For Mozart is it Mozart's Werke (MW) and Neue Mozart Ausgabe (NMA). Within the works list you can find the Kochel number, the key, instrumentation, and the volume, sections, and location within both editions of the Mozart's complete works which we have here at UGA. Using Oxford Music Online is one of the easiest ways to locate a piece withing the complete works for many composers.

The Works List is followed by the Bibliography section which is always a great starting point for research on a composer or topic.

Example of  Oxford Music Online Bibliography

Oxford Reference Online searches dozens of reference books from all subjects, including 12 music titles: 

The Search Box is at the top

The Results List is in the center of the page and will include entries where the word(s) or name may be the the title of the article or the word(s) or name may just be highlighted in the text of the article.

The Left Hand Menu has options for refining and limiting your search.

• Refine terms provides a menu just above the search box where you can change All to Entry Title, Book Title, Full Text, etc.  In addition, you can add additional search boxes and terms using the option [+] Add Row.
• Refine by Subject allows you to limit the results to sources in a specific subject. For example, selecting Music would limit the results to the 12 music resources listed already listed at the beginning of this discussion.

Example of Oxford Reference Online Search and Results options

This academic reference work on world music contains articles, audio examples, musical illustrations, photographs, and drawings and is regarded as an authoritative academic source for ethnomusicology.

The work is divided into 10 volumes organized by region which can be browsed or searched.

The work is an excellent source for traditional music from around the work, but can also be used to look at popular music of the world. For example a search on Hip Hop will bring up articles for various areas of the world 

Example of Hip Hop article for the US and Canada as well as possible influences in Europe and Latin America.

The above resources are just a sample of the reference resources that are available and often under utilized.

• For additional online resources go to the Subject Guide for Music and select the tab Encyclopedias, Dictionaries & Reference.
• Numerous print reference works our found in:
  • Music Library Reference Section
  • Main Library Music Library Reference Collection 2nd Floor (print encyclopedias, including major foreign language works, bibliographies, etc.
  • Main Library General Reference 1st Floor (many print encyclopedias and dictionaries for popular music)
• Online Reference information available in other online music databases
  • Naxos Music Online which provides streaming audio also has a resources section with a dictionary, opera synopsis and libretti, and pronunciation guides where you can hear how to pronounce a musical name or term.               
  • BabelScores: Contemporary Music Online a source for contemporary scores also provides brief biographical information as well as audio streaming of some music. 

Observation: Numerous Online Resources provide a variety of online information so be curious and investigate these various resources to discover the diverse types of information you can find in unexpected places.

The following exercise should use Oxford Music Online

1. Is there an Oxford Music Online article with Christophe Moyreau as the heading?

 

2. How many Oxford Music Online articles have Christophe Moyreau in the full text of the article(s)? 
The name or terms will be highlighted in the article.

Click for Answers for Encyclopedia Search Exercise