[FAS] Music 189r: Chamber Music Performance

This guide suggest Harvard Library resources that will be most helpful for program notes assignments in Music 189r: Chamber Music Performance. Look here for links to encyclopedias and bibliographies, tips on finding scores and recordings, and tools to help you credit sources and save time.

For personalized help, contact a music librarian by email or schedule a virtual or in-person reference consultation:

• Kerry Masteller: email or schedule an appointment
• Regina Dziergas: email or schedule an appointment

Start your search, using a known keyword and/or one of the strategies below.

• Exact Phrase – Use quotation marks to search for an exact name or phrase, instead of separate words.
  • Example: “sound studies" 
• AND, OR, NOT – Use Boolean operators (must be in all caps) to focus your search.
  • Using AND in your search will connect two or more related concepts or phrases.
    • Example: piano AND violin AND scores
  • Using NOT in your search will exclude specific words or phrases from your search results.
    • Example: Bach NOT cantatas
  • Using OR in your search will broaden your results to include any of your chosen terms.
    • Example: Medieval OR Early Medieval
• Truncation – Use an asterisk (*) in your search to find all the words that share a common root.
  • Example: Searching Viol* will provide search results with resources that include terms like viol, violin, viola, and English violet, as well as names like Viola Smith and Violeta Smailović-Huart.
• Grouping – Use parentheses to use multiple search strategies at once.
  • Example: (“Renaissance” AND madrigal) OR compos* – uses the exact term “Renaissance”, the additional term madrigal, as well as results that include both of the terms in parentheses and a word with the root compos* (in this case, likely composers, composition, or compose).

Still not finding the resources you need? Change or refine your search terms using the tips below.

• More or Less – Add or remove search terms to adjust your results.
• Uniqueness – Use words that are likely to show up in the materials you want and are unlikely to show up elsewhere, including vernacular or slang. Take note of any common phrases used in helpful resources you have already found to use as key terms for continued searching.
• Focus Your Results – Most databases and catalogs include a wide variety of filters to help you limit the scope of your search’s results, including filters about a resource’s date, format, topic, physical location, language, and accessibility. Use these modifiers to after an initial search to narrow the results even further.
• Connect to a Subject – Specify the research area, field or discipline you want to concentrate on in your search terms. For example, HOLLIS allows you to select a “Subject” in its search filters, allowing you to limit your search to resources whose HOLLIS records include a specific topic’s subject heading.