Are you a novice user looking for the score of a specific piece of western classical music at UCB and you're not sure what to do?

1. Use either "Advanched Search" of Pathfinder, selecting the following elements from the dropdown boxes—
   Author (keywords in name) composer surname
   Title keyword(s) title words
   Limit By Publication Format scores

   or a Basic Search of the Melvyl web catalog, selecting the following elements from the dropdown boxes—
   Search: Author/Title composer surname and title words
   Library: UC Berkeley
   Format: Scores (music)

   • Unsure which title words to use? or No results? Enter at least the name of the musical form/genre (in plural) combined with performance medium (e.g., "concertos violincello" or "sonatas piano"). Help is available at the Music Library Reference Desk.
   • Results unfocused or too few? Scan the results and select a record that seems to fit your needs. Find the uniform title of the piece within the record and search again using that title.

2. Still no results after several searches? Search Pathfinder again using collective uniform title words or check with the Music Library Reference Desk for assistance.

Step 1. Start with an "Advanced Search" of Pathfinder (or a "Power Search" of the MELVYL web catalog), entering composer surname and title words, while limiting the search by format to scores.

This strategy casts a relatively wide net, but is much more efficient than searching by work title alone, because works of instrumental music commonly have generic titles, such as "sonata," that produce search results too numerous to be useful. Similarly, searching by composer alone, such as Beethoven, would produce lists of works too numerous to sift through. The primary challenge in this author/title search strategy involves finding appropriate title words.

Unsure which title words to use? or No results? In searching for a concerto, sonata, symphony, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, mass, suite, variation, etude, etc., enter the form/genre name in plural (e.g., concertos, sonatas, symphonies, trios, quartets), add the performance medium/instrumentation (e.g., strings, piano, violin) except when looking for symphonies, and add other identifying information as available (e.g., no. 3, op. 17). Why? The combination of plural title form and performance medium is very frequently the basis of a standardized title, known as a uniform title, that is commonly added to music catalog records. The key to finding a broad, fair representation of musical items in the catalog lies in understanding and using uniform titles.

Why Uniform Titles? Library catalog records are based on information printed on title pages of published materials. There is a great deal of variety in the wording of titles that appear on covers of published scores due to differences such as language of publication, the number and order of descriptive elements used in the title, and the existence of a popular or descriptive titles. In order to provide a standardized means of locating items by name librarians commonly add a title, known as a uniform title, to catalog records. For example, the following terms appear on various title pages of publications, all describing the same piece by Beethoven: Sonata fur Klavier op. 31, no. 2 Sonate pour piano no. 17 en re mineur op. 31 no. 2 Piano sonata no. 17 in D minor op. 31 no. 2 Tempest sonata Sonata (Tempest) op. 31, no. 2 Zongoraszonata Instead of forcing users to search six different ways, under six different titles to find these items, library catalogs bring the various individual manifestations of the work under a single and unique, uniform title. Thus, to call up all of the items listed above in one search, enter its uniform title: [Sonatas, piano, no. 17, op. 31, no. 2, D minor] This uniform title is added to each catalog record of a published edition of the work. The more elements of the uniform title you can include, the more precise your search results will be. Information that can be helpful in selecting appropriate title words may be found by consulting the composer work lists found at the end of biographical entries in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. For more information on uniform titles see the tutorial at Indiana University or the introduction by Matthew Wise.

Results unfocused or too few? Scan the results of your search and select a record that seems to fit your needs. Find the uniform title of the piece you seek within the catalog record (look for "Uniform Title" in Pathfinder) and search again using that title (click on the link).

Unfocused? Certain composers have written so many pieces of a certain form/genre that basic searches without further identifying information, such as "beethoven + sonatas piano +scores," will retrieve far too many items to consider—nearly 200 items. One way to narrow the results is by consulting the composer work lists found at the end of biographical entries in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in order to find opus (work) numbers or keys that may be used in a uniform title. Often, scanning the first dozen or more of the items in the search results will turn up a record that fits your needs. Find the uniform title in the catalog record and search again using the more specific information given (click on the link; you may need to modify the search afterward by limiting by publication format to "Scores," but the results of the search will focus on the desired piece).

Too Few? In cases where title keywords initially entered are of a popular or descriptive title, such as "Oxford Symphony" or "Fifths Quartet," an initial search using "haydn + oxford symphony + scores" or "haydn + fifths quartet + scores" would retrieve the needed items in Pathfinder, but the number of items retrieved would be greater if the uniform titles of these two works—[Symphonies, H. I, 92, G major] and [Quartets, strings, H. III, 76, D minor]—are selected.