Music Research - finding the score

Welcome!

Trexler Library has thousands of musical scores for students and faculty who need them for research as well as for performance -- for school or pleasure!

Searching for and locating scores can be tricky.  This guide should help you in locating the musical resources you need.

To find a score of a particular musical work in Trexler Library's holdings, start with the main Search box on the library homepage.

TIP: It is usually best to combine the composer's name AND the title of the work as an initial search.

Join these two pieces of information with AND (in capital letters)

Example: Beethoven AND symphony no. 9

Then use the filters on the left side of the browser to select the format "Musical Score".

You can use TRUNCATION and WILDCARDS to search for:

• words or names that have more than one form, for example:

enter symphon*  to find symphon+y or symphon+ies

• words that have alternate spellings

especially true for Russian composers' names like Stravinsky or Stravinski; (Stravinsk* will get both!)

See the LibGuide on Truncation for more information.

See the "Musical search terms" tab in this guide for more information and strategies on search terminology.

Don't forget --

Encompass Search uses KEYWORD searching, so your search will locate records with all of your search terms anywhere in the record, and not necessarily in the order you want.

• To search for a KNOWN TITLE, enter your search in quotes.  This will force Encompass Search to locate the terms together in the order you specify. 
• You can combine terms using boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT (be sure to capitalize them!)
• Once you have run your basic search, use the FILTERS on the left-hand side of the results page to narrow your results by FORMAT, AUTHOR, LANGUAGE, or TOPIC.
• Use the SUBJECTS hot links found within the item record under the "View Description" drop down. These are Library of Congress SUBJECT headings, and can be used to find additional resources on the same or similar topics, or of a similar GENRE.
• Use TRUNCATION (i.e., shortening a word to its root or base form using a designated symbol) for words that might have more than one significant form, OR for terms that might have alternative spellings.​​

For more information on Truncation or other Advanced Searching Techniques in Encompass Search see our "Guide to Encompass Search"