Music subjectId: 687766

Whether you're new to the Frost School of Music or a seasoned professor, the Weeks Music Library has a variety of resources and services designed to support performance, composition, research, teaching, and learning.

Your faculty librarians and library staff are here to help you succeed at Frost! Use this form to book an in-person or virtual consultation with Sara Manus, Director of the Weeks Music Library. 

The Weeks Music Library hosts a branch of the Creative Studio on the ground floor. Equipped with Windows and Macs, the Creative Studio lab provides access to Sibelius, Ableton Live 10, Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, Cubase 10, Studio One 4, MuseScore 3.

Equipment, including microphones, Zoom recorders, midi keyboards, and audio interfaces, is also available for checkout Monday through Friday from 9 am until 5 pm. You can see what equipment is available and make reservations to use it on Creative Studio's Equipment page. 

Weeks also has two state-of-the-art audio production booths. The booths are reserved by time slot: Monday-Friday, 9 am until 12 pm and 2-5 pm. You can reserve the booth at this link. 

Nick Aponte, Emerging Technologies Librarian, is available for in-person and virtual appointments. Use this link to book an appointment with Nick. 

The Weeks Music Library welcomes material recommendations from UM students, faculty, and staff. Please fill out this purchase request form to recommend books, scores, or recordings for the collection.

Professor Manus also provides custom library instruction sessions for Frost departments, programs, and courses. She will work with you to design a session that meets the information needs of your students. Use this form to request a library instruction session. 

This research guide is designed to familiarize you with specific information sources and services available at the Weeks Music Library. This page provides general information; the menu on the left links to pages that provide information about how to access different types of library materials (print and digital).

• CHC (Cuban Heritage Collection) Music Guide
• Digital Humanities Guide
• Education - Music education students and faculty should consult the general education databases and resources listed on this guide in addition to the music-specific sources available here.
• ETDs Formatting Support
• Guide to Interactive Media
• Instrumental Performance
• Latin American Music
• Music Therapy Research Methods
• Musical Theater

The University of Miami's uSearch is a powerful tool that allows you to locate print and digital materials held by the libraries. It has several different search options:

• Everything - the broadest search option, everything retrieves articles, books, scores, audioviual materials, films, e-resources, and other types of materials, including works from the Lowe Art Museum collection.
• Library Catalog - searches for materials found in UM Libraries with the exception of the UM Digital Collections (which has its own search option). This is the default search setting when accessing uSearch from the Weeks Music Library's homepage. You will find books, scores, audiovisual materials, and journal titles, but NOT individual articles. 
• UM Digital Libraries - searches for digitized materials from the Special Collections, Cuban Heritage Collection, and UM Archives, as well as UM faculty and student authored content deposited in the UM Scholarly Repository and MiamiLaw Repository.
• Course Reserves -  searches for articles and other materials placed on class reading and viewing lists by faculty.

More information about uSearch is available at this research guide.

Basic Catalog Search Tips

• The library catalog is designed to do an initial broad search. You have the opportunity to limit your initial search results by using the options under the "Refine my results" menu.
  • If you need a specific format, the options under "Resource type" are very helpful. Options include books and e-books, scores, CDs, and DVDs.
• If you are looking for a phrase or unique title, use quotation marks (e.g., "phantom of the opera," "birth of the cool").
• You don't need to capitalize words or use Boolean operators.
• When searching for instrumental music, it's helpful to include the composer, genre, opus, and key. You can always broaden your search if your terms are too specific.
• For scores or sheet music, narrow your search by including the type of score (e.g., “vocal score,” “parts”) or publisher (“henle,” “hal leonard”).
• For recordings, narrow your search by including performers or ensembles (“kristin chenoweth,” “london symphony”), conductors (“dudamel”), or record labels (“sony," “emi”)
• If you are looking for a smaller portion of a larger work (like a single song from a larger cycle or an aria from an opera) and you can't find it, try looking for the larger work instead (e.g., instead of searching for "trockne blumen," search for "schone mullerin").
• If you're having trouble finding something, stop by the Weeks Music Library's Service Desk for help.
  • You can book a consultation with Sara Manus, Director of the Weeks Music Library. 

Tips for Finding Classical Music

• If you aren’t sure how to spell a name (rachmaninov or rachmaninoff?), add an asterisk after the letters you are sure of (rachminino*) to search for multiple versions of the name.
• Use the original language of a title (“nozze di figaro,” not “marriage of figaro”).
  • If you do not know the full title, limit your title search to words that are the same in either language (“figaro”).
  • Leave off initial articles (“nozze di figaro,” not “le nozze di figaro”).
  • “Nickname” titles (like “Moonlight” sonata) do not always appear as part of the title information.
• If the work doesn’t have a unique title, search for the plural form of its genre (such as “symphonies,” “concertos,” “sonatas,” or “quartets”).
  • If the work has an opus or thematic catalog number, add the number as a keyword. You don’t need to include “op.” or “K.” or “BWV” or any similar thematic catalog abbreviations.
  • If the work has only a serial number (violin concerto no. 3) you can enter “no. 3” or "3" as a keyword.
  • If the work has no opus, thematic catalog, or serial number, try adding the key as a keyword phrase (“g major”).
  • For works with a specific solo instrument (piano sonatas, violin concertos) you can add the instrument as a Keyword
  • For chamber works, you can enter the type of work as a Keyword phrase (“string quartets,” “brass sextets, “wind quintets” or “woodwind quintets).

You can find a variety of audio and video formats at the Weeks Music Library:

• CDs
• DVDs
• LPs (vinyl records)
• VHS tapes
• Audio cassette tapes
• DVDs

Playback equipment for all formats is also available at Weeks. Physical media is kept behind the service desk in the secure access area of the library. Provide the call number to the staff at the desk and they will retrieve it for you. Headphones can also be checked out at the desk.

Need help using the turntable or another piece of playback equipment? Just ask! Staff are happy to assist you.

• French opera libretti (ML48 .F74 1999)
• German miscellaneous opera libretti (ML48 .G373 2005)
• Gluck & Monteverdi opera libretti (ML48 .G57 2008)
• Italian belcanto opera libretti (ML48 .I83 2000)
• Italian verismo opera libretti (ML48 .I89 2000)
• Libretti of Russian operas. Vol. 1 (ML48 .L637 2004)
• Handel opera libretti (ML49 .H236 2005)
• The libretti of Mozart's completed operas (ML49 .M83 C315 1997)
• The complete Puccini libretti (ML49 .P977 1993)
• The complete Verdi libretti (ML49 .V484 1994)
• Three Wagner opera libretti (ML49 .W134 2006)
• Four Strauss opera libretti (ML49 .S76 O62 2002)
• Der Ring des Nibelungen (ML50 .W14 R32 2003)
• Selected song texts of great German lieder (ML54.6 .G53 2004)
• Italian song texts from the 17th through the 20th centuries (ML54.6 .I83)
• Italian song texts from the 18th century (ML54.6 .I83 v.2)
• Schumann's complete song texts (ML54.6 .S387 G52 2002)
• Schubert's complete song texts (ML54.6 .S39 G515 1996)
• Richard Strauss' complete song texts (ML54.6 .S77 2004)
• Hugo Wolf's complete song texts (ML54.6 .W6 G55 2000)

• The complete annotated Gilbert and Sullivan / introduced and edited by Ian Bradley (ML49 .S9 A1 1996)
• The complete lyrics of Irving Berlin / edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet (ML54.6 .B464 K55 2001)
• The new American musical : an anthology from the end of the century / edited and introduced by Wiley Hausam (ML48 .N485 2003)
• The ring of words; an anthology of song texts / selected and translated by Philip L. Miller (ML54.6 .M5 R5 1973)

• Christian Classics Ethereal Library - Hymns and Hymnology by Title
  Full text of dozens of hymnals and books on hymnology.
• Hymnary.org
  "A comprehensive index of 5,028 hymnals, 1,043,148 published hymns, scores and media files, and information." Allows searching by song titles and first lines, hymnal titles, persons, and tunes.

• Aria Database
  The Aria Database is a collection of information about opera and operatic arias, including translations for many arias and aria texts for those that are not affected by copyright restrictions.
• LiederNet Archive
  "The world's largest reference archive of texts and translations of art songs and choral works."
• Opera Glass
  Standford's opera web directory contains libretti, source texts, synopses, discographies, and information about composers, librettists, and opera companies.
• Libretto Index
  An index of known libretto pages, arranged by composer and name of the opera.

• Bluegrass Lyrics
  Searchable index of bluegrass song lyrics; also includes links to collections of songs by artist and subgenre.
• Child Ballads Index
  E-text version of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, by Francis James Child.
• Folk Music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales & America
  Contains information about traditional, popular, and folk tunes from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and America.
• Popular Songs in American History
  Information on popular and traditional songs from the Colonial and Revolutionary Era to the early 20th century.
• Roud Folk Song Index
  "The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 143,000 references to songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world."
• Roud Folk Song Index on Wikipedia
  Provides a brief description and links to the various folk songs.
• Search the Roud Folk Song Index
  The Roud Folk Song Index search page.
• Traditional & Folk Songs - Lyrics
  A collection of over 3700 lyrics compiled by Traditional Music Library and sorted alphabetically.
• Women's Folksong Lyrics & Historical Notes
  Index of folk songs by women, compiled by musician and historian Gerri Gribi.