MUSC 221: Music, Ritual, and Representation. 1400-1600 (HC)

Boolean operators: 

AND, OR, NOT allow you to limit or expand searches depending on your needs.

AND intersect Artusi AND Monteverdi

OR interchangable des Prez OR des Pres

NOT in the way de Lassus NOT Ferdinand (Orlando's eldest son)

Phrase searching:

An important strategy to employ when searching phrasal concepts or conducting known-item searches for titles:

• Ma belle dame souveraine (without quotation marks) will search for Ma AND belle AND dame AND souveraine.
• "Ma belle dame souveraine" (in quotation marks) will search for the Du Fay rondeau.

Nested Searching:

When pairing two or more keywords with another keyword, it is helfpul to "nest" the former terms within a larger Boolean search.

• Counterpoint AND Palestrina AND (Zarlino OR Zacconi) might be a useful way to get at contempory critiques of Palestrina's contrapuntal style by Zarlino and/or Zacconi.

Truncation and Wildcards:

Most catalogs and databases enable users to search variations of keywords by using truncation (*) or wildcard (e.g., ?, $, !) symbols.

• Truncation searching: you could search for motet* to find motet, motets, motette (Ger. sing.), motetten (Ger. pl.), motetto (It. sing.), motetti (It. pl.), and so on.
• Wildcard searching: a search for mu??k would return musik (Ger), muzak, and so on.

Combining the two, viol?n* would return violin, violinist, violon (Fr), violoniste (Fr), violino (It), and so on.