FAQs: Finding songs, arias, and translations

Searching Multiple-Composer Anthologies and Collections

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Socrates often doesn't list the songs that are found in a collection or anthology so that you may not find a particular song by searching for it in the title index, even though we may own a collection containing it. Sometimes you may be able to find a particular song title by searching the Keyword index. This will only work if the contents of the collection have been included in the cataloging. If this does not work, you can use printed indexes to find where a song may be found. Once a song is located in a collection or anthology, search Socrates to find out if we own it.

DeCharms, Desiree.
Songs in Collections : An Index.
[1966.]
An index of 411 collections of art songs, operatic arias, and some folk song anthologies, all with piano accompaniment. Limited to collections published between 1940 and 1957, but exhaustive of that period. Main index arranged in sections of composed songs, anonymous songs, and folk songs, carols and sea chanties. Includes Index to All Titles and First Lines, and Author Index.
ML128 .S6 D29 Music Reference Room

Ferguson, Gary Lynn.
Song Finder.
1995.
Indexes 621 song books from 1854-1992, of popular songs in collections, by song title.
ML128 .S3 F35 1995 Music Reference Room

Find That Tune : An Index to Rock, Folk-rock, Disco & Soul in Collections.
1984-1988.
2 vols.
Indexes over 4000 songs in 203 published collections from 1950-1981. Contains title, first line, and composer/lyricist indexes.
ML128 .R6 F49 1984 Music Reference Room

Goleeke, Thomas.
Literature for Voice.
1984.
A two-volume index to songs in 132 collections and source book for teachers of singing. Meant for beginning students. Gives the key and range of each song. Author and title indexes included.
ML128 .S3 G62 1984 Music Reference Room

Goodfellow, William D.
Where's That Tune? : An Index to Songs in Fakebooks.
1990.
An index by titles and composers of 64 fakebooks totaling over 13,500 songs. For this index a "fakebook" is defined as a collection for which only the melody line, chord symbols, and words are written out.
ML128 .P63 G65 1990 Music Reference Room

Havlice, Patricia Pate.
Popular Song Index.
1975.
Also First Supplement, 1978; Second supplement, 1984; Third supplement, 1989.
The original volume indexes over 300 song books published between 1940-1972. The 2nd supplement covers 1974-1981, and the 3rd, 1979-1987. Includes popular and folk, spirituals, hymns, children's songs, blues, etc. Arranged in 3 parts: 1) Bibliography of collections indexed; 2) Index, by title, first line of song, first line of chorus; 3) Composer/lyricist index.
ML128 .S3 H38 Music Reference Room

Leigh, Robert.
Index to Song Books.
1964.
Title index of over 100 popular and folk song books published between 1933 and 1962. Includes ca. 6800 songs. Main index by title with references from alternate titles or memorable lines.
ML128 .S3 L45 1964 Music Reference Room

Luchinsky, Ellen.
The Song Index of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
1998.
Contains ca. 160,000 entries from all types of collections, anthologies, and song books. Main index by title with composer and alternate title information. Includes composer and sources indexes.
ML128 .S3 L665 1998 Music Reference Room

Sears, Minnie Earl.
Song Index.
1926.
Also Supplement, 1934.
The main volume and supplement together index ca. 20,000 songs in 280 collections. Entries are by title, composer, author, with references from first line to title. Broad in scope, including operatic arias, art songs, folk, popular, etc. Includes classified list of collections indexed.
ML128 .S3 S43 Music Reference Room

Again, once you find that a song is published in a particular anthology, you will need to search Socrates to determine if Stanford has it. For example, if you find that the song you want is included in an anthology called The Great American Songbook, you could search for it in Socrates by using the Title index.

Title:

great american songbook

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