Music 474: Vocal Literature  Tags: music performers vocal_music music_repertoire  

Dictionaries

Biographical Information

Research Guides

Titles

For more information about popular song and musical theatre, see our guide titled  Finding Popular Songs.

There are myriad music dictionaries and encyclopedias. Depending on what topic you are researching you may need a very specialized one or a more general one.

Fairly self-explanatory, these dictionaries only have entries for people. Grove is also a great place to start, but if you need more, try these.

If you need an overall guide to how to research vocal music, these tools are all great, depending on your specific need. They can lead you to other books about your song/topic.

You can also look for a "guide to research" or bio-bibliography for the specific composer or type of music in which you are interested.

Sometimes pieces have "nicknames" or names that they are commonly referred to by, but these may not be the "real" name of the work. If you are having a hard time tracking down a piece, you might have to do a little research to see if it has another (real) name.