Reference Resources for Music Cataloging
Last content review: 2025-09-05
Music cataloging regularly requires reference information from a wide variety of sources, categorized here by the type of information they provide: information on vocal and instrumental music, languages, biographies of composers and performers, and bibliographies and discographies of musical works.
See the Music Library Association Cataloging and Metadata Committee (CMC) website for more information on cataloging standards and best practices from our professional organization.
Vocal and instrumental music resources
- When is a "flute" not a flute?
- Vocal ranges for music cataloging
- Song cycles
- Parts of the Mass
- Basic glossary of musical forms
Language tools for music cataloging
- Common terms in German music publications and thematic catalogs
- Numbers in French, German, Italian, and Spanish
- Numbers in languages other than French, German, Italian, and Spanish
- Musical keys in French, German, Italian, and Spanish
- Instruments and voices in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish
- Capitalization of key, opus, and number
- Initial articles in several European languages
- Cyrillic language alphabets and how they diverge from one another
- Distinguishing between Catalan and Spanish
- Fraktur
Biographical sources for music cataloging
- Print musical biographical sources
- Online musical biographical sources
- Biographical sources for performers on sound recordings (print and online)