Overview

As the description above states, Oxford Music Online (OMO) is a database that serves as a portal to access encyclopedias and dictionaries on a wide-range of music topics, terms, and musicians. OMO is a great first place to start your research to obtain an overview of a topic. 

Type of Database

Combination of encyclopedia and dictionary

Resources Included

Grove Music Online; Oxford Dictionary of Music; Oxford Companion to Music

Purpose

Useful for finding background information, understanding terminology, and bibliography citations to find more resources

Search Strategies and Using Limiters

• Search for composers by last name, first name
• Results are defaulted to appear by "Relevance." You can change this to suit your needs on the search results page. Since the default is set to relevance, the primary result for "Beethoven, Ludwig van" appeared at the top of the search results.
• Before you select an entry, you have the option to Modify Your Search to limit results further on the left-hand side of the page. 

  • Modify your search with Boolean options: AND, OR, or NOT. Alternatively, you can use connectors AND, OR, or NOT in your initial search in the upper right-hand search field. For instance, you could try to narrow your search a bit by searching Beethoven AND “string quartets” to combine terms. Use quotes around a phrase to keep the words together. This will retrieve articles with the name "Beethoven" and phrase "string quartets" anywhere in the article.

• Selecting the first result, "Beethoven, Ludwig van," provides an extensive article with an overview on Beethoven's life and works.
• Limiters on the left are a very powerful tool in this database. Pay particular attention to limiters by:
  • Years
  • Stylistic periods
  • Works list
  • Bibliography
• Works List: This list separates further by genre and provides pertinent information, like instrumentation, publication information, and performances dates. Use this list and dates to jump back to learn historical information with the corresponding year.
• Bibliography and "More on this topic:" Search citations for ideas on where to take your research inquiry next.

Database Features

• As a UNT student, you have the option to create a profile with Oxford Music Online. With this feature, save citations to your account for future reference.
• Download articles as a PDF
• Share 
• Cite and export to a citation manager, like RefWorks