Welcome!
Locating music for individual songs can be a challenge since many anthologies and collections don't have complete contents listings in HOLLIS. This guide provides quick access to the Harvard Library resources that will be most helpful for performers and researchers looking for single songs.
Looking for something further? Contact Kerry Masteller for a personalized suggestion.
Searching: First Steps
- Search HOLLIS for the title of the song.
- If it's from a musical or opera, look for the score of the larger work, too (for example: to find copies of "Ol' Man River," also try searching for Show Boat).
- Limit your results by Resource Type to "scores" to find only printed music.
- If you're browsing for song collections, other helpful subject keywords include terms like these (you don't need to include the punctuation):
- Musicals -- Vocal scores
- Operas -- Excerpts [or Musicals -- Excerpts]
- Songs (Medium voice) with piano [and so on, for different voice ranges]
- Popular songs
- Songs, English [or other language]
Song Indexes
These websites provide a way to search 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. If we don't own it, try Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan to request a copy from another library.
- Musical Theater SongsUse this database to search the musical theater repertoire by composer, show, voice type, tempo, mood or quality ("charming," "wordy," "bluesy"), etc. and then find links to sheet music and recordings.
- The Folk Song IndexAn Oberlin College Libraries and Sing Out! Collaboration. Indexes over 2400 anthologies and 62,000 songs, with a focus on English-language traditional music from around the world.
- ASU Libraries Song IndexAn index of songs contained in printed collections available in the Arizona State University Music Library.
- UT Song IndexIndexes about 50,000 songs in over 1500 anthologies owned by the George F. DeVine Music Library at the University of Tennessee
- University of North Texas Radio Station & Song Collections CatalogAn index of popular music and songs from the library's sheet music collections.
These reference books allow you to search 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.
The library owns many other indexes like these, focused on subsets of the repertoire. To find more, search HOLLIS for the subject keywords Songs Indexes.
Warning: these books are not comprehensive, and Harvard does not own all of the anthologies they index. Take note of the genres they cover, as well as their publication dates: don't waste your time looking up a song from the 1990s in a book that was published in the 1980s!
The Song Index of the Enoch Pratt Free Library by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Aldrich Room ML128.S3 L665 1998Publication Date: 1998Covers popular, classical, folk music, and hymnals
Popular Song Index by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Aldrich Room ML128.S3 H4 (+ supplements 1-3)ISBN: 9780810808201Publication Date: 1975-1989Covers popular songs, folk music, and hymns, in collections published prior to 1987SongCite: an index to popular songs by
Call Number: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128.P63 G65 1995Publication Date: 1995Indexes popular song collections published after 1988- Songs in collections: an index by Call Number: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128.S3 D37Publication Date: 1966Covers primarily art songs, in collections published between 1940 and 1957
Art Song in the United States, 1759-2011: An Annotated Bibliography. 4th ed. by Call Number: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128.S3 C37 2013Publication Date: 2013Covers songs by American composers from the mid-18th through early 21st centuries
Green book of songs by subject: the thematic guide to popular music by Call Number: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML156.4.P6 G73 1994Publication Date: 1995
Rock Song Index: the 7500 most important songs of the Rock and Roll era, 1944-2000 by Call Number: Loeb Music Aldrich Room ML128.R6 P65 2005Publication Date: 2005- Popular Music: an annotated index of American popular songs by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Aldrich Room ML120.U5 S5Publication Date: 1965-2002
Scores and Sheet Music
The Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Mus 502.75 - Mus 502.75.4Collections of solos and duets for various voice ranges. This series has thorough contents notes in HOLLIS, so searching by song title will also work.
Contemporary Singing Actor by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Mus 502.79-Mus 502.86Songs from recently-produced musicals (1980-present). This set also has thorough contents notes in HOLLIS.
Broadway musicals, show by show by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Mus 502.65Selections from musicals produced between 1891 and 1988. HOLLIS does not include contents notes for this series.
To find many other collections, search for a composer's name, keywords like "operas excerpts," or search for the title keywords "art songs" in HOLLIS, and limit your results to scores.
Opera Aria Anthology by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Mus 503.10Arias by contemporary American composers.
American Aria Anthology by Call Number: Loeb Music Library Mus 502.63.1 - Mus 502.63.7
- Music Online: Classical Scores LibraryFull, study, piano, and vocal scores of music from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, available for use online or printed/saved to PDF.
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 includes links to many other sites. Try the tag digital_score or look for words like Sheet Music, Songs, or Singing in the title or description.
- Sheet Music Consortium200,000+ pieces of sheet music from the collections of 22 institutions. Sign up for a free account to make your own private or shared portfolios of sheet music from the site.
- Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1820 to 1860Over 15,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright at the Library of Congress between 1820 and 1860.
- Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1870 to 1885Over 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright at the Library of Congress between 1870 and 1885.
- Library of Congress: Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800-19229000 pieces of music - the majority from 1850-1920 - including both classical and popular songs.
- IMSLPIMSLP (The International Music Score Library Project) holds thousands of digitized scores from collections around the world. Use Harvard's subscription to skip wait times for downloads.
