Information Diva’s Links for Singers

Composers

Health

Metasites

Organizations

Scores and Sheet Music, and Recordings

Networking

Rehearsal & Performing Spaces

Travel

Starting Points for Web Searching

Opera, Arias and Songs

Aria Database - http://www.aria-database.com/

Search this database of 1000 arias by aria title, composer, opera or role. Information includes voice type, fach, range, tessitura, synopsis, translation, MIDI sound file, and sources to buy score and recordings.

The Lied and Song Texts Page - http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/

An archive of song texts and texts of other classical pieces. Search by composer, language, poet, title, and first line.

Opera Glass - http://opera.stanford.edu/opera/main.html

An opera information server on the Web from Stanford University. It includes libretti, source texts, performance histories, synopses, discographies, and more.

UTK Song Index - http://www.lib.utk.edu:90/~music/songwizard/

If you know a song title or a composer’s name and need more information about the song, search this index. It’ll give you the anthology in which you can find the song in the public library. Go to www.nypl.org to search the New York Public Library catalog for the anthology title. Reminder: the performing arts library is a research library, so search “CATNYP.”

Composers

Bach Cantatas Web Site - http://www.bach-cantatas.com/

The contents of this site are being built as an international collective project (started in late 1999), to which you are invited to join. This site is compiled from various postings about Bach Cantatas, especially recordings of them, which have been sent to the "Bach Cantatas Mailing List" (BCML and some from other mailing lists) and may be considered as the Web Archive for that list

Classical Composers’ Archive - http://voyager.physics.unlv.edu/webpages2/picgalr2.html

1000 composers listed alphabetically and by nationality. Find bios, dates.

Health

Center for Voice Disorders of Wake Forest University - http://www.wfubmc.edu/voice/

This is a link to the Singers and Singing page of the Wake Forest University Center for Voice Disorders. Subjects covered include medicine in the vocal arts, biomechanics of the singing voice, the 10 most common problems of singers, and warming up techniques.

Laryngologists (doctors specializing in the larynx) in New York City Recommended by PWSA Members:

Anthony Jahn, M.D. – 212-262-4400, 425 W. 59 St.

Gwen Korovin, M.D. – 212-879-6630, 47 E. 77 St.

Geoffrey Pollock, M.D. – 212-873-6175, 211 Central Park West

Peak Woo, M.D. – 212-241-9425, 5 East 98 St.

Also – Robert Thayer Sataloff, M.D. in Philadelphia (l72l Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA) writes regularly for the NATS (National Assn. of Teachers of Singing). He can give you referrals for doctors in other cities.

Metasites (sites containing lists of sites – good starting points for looking up info on music topics)

About.com - http://classicalmusic.about.com/cs/voice/

This link takes you to the resources related to the singing voice at the classical music section of About.com (www.about.com). A guide, hand – picks sites for users based on her knowledge of the web and classical music. Links under “singers” takes users to links of singers’ home pages. Although this particular link might not be helpful, others will be.

andante - http://www.andante.com/

The andante Web site features an array of informational and educational resources, live and recorded performances, professional services and a magazine section. Search “Music In Print,” the “Concise Grove’s Dictionary of Music,” concert notes, the “New York Review of Books,” discographies, recordings in print, and the “New Kobbe’s Opera Book.”

Cindy Sadler is a singer with links for singers on her home page - http://www.cindy-sadler.com/

Classical Net - http://www.classical.net/

This site contains links to 3800 sites about classical music (http://www.classical.net/music/links/musiclnk.html or click on Classical Music Links on the home page), so may be a good place to start your searching. http://www.classical.net/music/links/operalnk.html are links about opera, choral and vocal music.

Classical.com - http://www.classical.com

A classical music subscription site offering online listening, downloads, custom CDs, and a huge resource of information to

 expand your classical music knowledge.

Duke University Music Department DW3: Classical Music Resources - http://www.lib.duke.edu/music/resources/classical_index.html

This site bills itself as “the world’s most comprehensive collection of classical music links.” Whether it lives up to this statement or not, it does offer a lot of valuable links to information about classical music. Find composer homepages categorized by era, composer chronologies, nationally and regionally oriented pages, music organizations and societies, electronic journals and newsletters, genre-specific pages (i.e. opera, choral, instrumental, chant, early music, etc.), and databases (searchable web sites where you can find a variety of information on specific subjects, for example Aria Database. This includes searchable databases of sound recordings.)

Musician Resources - http://www.musicianresources.org/ See the link on the home page for “vocal/opera” for sources geared toward singers. Find links also for organizations, publishers, competitions, and education.

New York Public Library Music Division Selected Music Resources on the Internet - http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/mus/mus.resources.html

Royal Holloway University of London Department of Music Links for Musicians on the WWW –

http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/Links/index.html Find associations, universities, conferences, reference books, composer sites. A comprehensive informal list of sites about classical music geared toward musicians.

Singing Voice - http://worldzone.net/music/singingvoice/  This site provides detailed information, history and links about the

 human singing voice, opera, and the art of singing. It includes links to information about health, anatomy, a chat room, and

 pedagogy.

University of Washington Music Library Reference Desk - http://www.lib.washington.edu/music/resource.html

Lots of excellent links on all aspects of classical music collected by the librarians at U. Washington Music Library.

Vocal Net (Vocal Arts Resource Network) http://www.vocalohio.org/  Ohio regional site for the singing community.  Links

 include resources that include vocal competitions.

Organizations

Georgetown Prep School Music Department has prepared a collection of links to commercial, academic, non-profit, academic institutions, including festivals http://www.gprep.pvt.k12.md.us/classical/organizations.html

Arts Marketing Online – http://www.artsmarketing.org

Online component of the National Arts Marketing Project. Includes links to marketing sites and publications, an interactive forum, and info about National Arts Marketing Workshops across the country

National Assocation of Teachers of Singing (NATS) - http://www.nats.org/

This site has a Journal Index of articles published in the journal of NATS. If you’re looking for information on a topic related to singing or teaching, try this database. Articles are available through the performing arts research library of NYPL or order back issues through NATS.

Scores, Sheet Music, and Recordings

My Sheet Music - http://www.mysheetmusic.com/ Free sheet music available to download using Adobe Acrobat.

Links to sheet music online from About.com - http://classicalmusic.about.com/cs/sheetmusic/

Find scores and sheet music to buy and download online, including a list of free sheet music sites http://classicalmusic.about.com/cs/freesheetmusic/index.htm.

William and Gayle Cook Music Library (Indiana Univ.) online music scores - http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/scores.html

A selection of opera scores viewable online.

Marcella Music - http://www.marcellamusic.com. This store’s proprietor is a piano teacher, vocalist, and entrepreneur with over 25 years’ experience giving highly individualized instruction to pupils ranging from 5-year olds to baby boomers. They’ll search for hard-to-find sheet music. Phone 215-517-8466. Fax 215-517-8468. Toll free: 1-877-Marcella. E-mail Marcella@marcellasmusic.com.

Schubertline - http://www.schubertline.co.uk/. This site provides “instant online printing” of lieder, songs and arias which may be viewed, played and printed in any key using Sibelius Scorch, a free software which can be downloaded from the site. They claim to have 800 plus vocal scores of songs by all the great composers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Most printed material costs about $1.00.

Tower Records Database of Recordings

http://towermusic.endeca.com/towermusic?n=0&as=1

The database has an advanced interface, provides access to a potentially useful

reference tool. Two advanced interfaces exist, one for all types of recordings except classical and the second, a specialized

 classical interface.  The General search allows searching by artist, guest artist, album title, song, genre, label, producer,

 format.

Classical Interface Search Criteria

For classical recordings, use this link:

http://towerclassical.endeca.com/towerclassical?n=0&as=1

Search by composer, work, form (over 20 available), performer, conductor, ensemble, album title, label, catalog #, instrument, and format.

Networking

Boston Singers Resource - www.BostonSingersResource.com is new networking group in the New England area.  Membership is open to anyone and includes classical singers, directors, and accompanists of all levels.  Currently, they have over 300 members.

Classical Singer - http://www.classicalsinger.com/

This the Web site of the Classical Singer magazine. There’s not much available for free here, but if you need the information they have on the site, you may be willing to pay. The coach directory is searchable, but doesn’t have many listings yet. One of the most helpful features is the “forums” area where you can join other singers in discussing singing-related issues.

The New Forum for Classical Singers - http://humpybaritone.home.mindspring.com/

Discussion groups on various topics for classical singers.

Musical America

Search for email addresses for people and organizations listed in the Musical America directory using their free

search engine at http://musicalamerica.com/InternetDirectory.cfm

Rehearsal & Performing Spaces

NYC Music Places – http://www.nycmusicplaces.org

is New York City’s database of available rehearsal and performance spaces for instrument and vocal musicians. Search by

 location, size of space, and cost.  From the site:  “helps individual musicians and music groups of all kinds locate suitable

 rehearsal and performance spaces.   It also helps facilities market underused spaces to generate income.  Many of these

 facilities, such as education and religious institutions, museums and libraries, cultural and community centers, provide

 responsive environments for musicians.”  Exploring the Metropolis, Inc., the non-profit sponsor of the site, was established in

 1981 to promote public and private sector dialogues sympathetic to the real estate needs of NYC’s cultural communities.

Maestro - http://www.maestrotravel.com/enews/052002/index.htm

Maestro! Travel & Touring was founded by CEO Ken Grundy in 1994 with the mission of providing specialized travel and touring services to the performing arts. They provide a free email mail newsletter that you can subscribe to from this link.

Starting Points for Web Searching

· iTools Research It! - http://www.itools.com/research-it/ On one site, search Biographical Dictionary, Bartlett’s Quotations, maps, telephone directories, currency conversion, and stock quotes

· Refdesk.com - http://www.refdesk.com/ This is a huge site with thousands of links to help you find facts about practically any subject. There’s so much on this site and it’s well worth acquainting yourself with the arrangement.

· *Britannica.com – http://www.britannica.com This site not only includes full text of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but a search results in Web sites selected by the Britannica.com editors in your subject area. Books and articles are also included in the search results.

· *About.com – http://www.about.com Over 700 topics are covered on this site. Human editors manage and select web sites for each of the subject areas.

· *Bubl Link - http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/ BUBL is a national information service for the higher education community, funded by JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils of England, Scotland and Wales and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland. It is a catalog of Internet resources categorized, evaluated and described. Browse the subject list, the subject hierarchy, or search. No more than 35 links for each subject. Most have 10 – 20 links.

· *Librarians’ Index to the Internet – http://www.lii.org 90 volunteer librarians from the California State U. Library maintain this searchable catalog of web sites.

· Internet Public Library – http://www.ipl.org

Other Useful Links and Searching Tips:

Dictionaries

· One Look - http://www.onelook.com/ Search for online dictionaries. 731 dictionaries indexed.

· Merriam Webster OnLine - http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm. Includes Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus.

· Encarta World English Dictionary - http://dictionary.msn.com/

· Technical Encyclopedia - http://whatis.techtarget.com/

· The Exploding Dictionary - http://projects.ghostwheel.com/dictionary/ An index of Web dictionaries where each word in the definition is linked to definitions of that word.

· Rhyming Dictionary - http://www.rhymezone.com/

· Yahoo! Multilingual Glossaries - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlossPost/links

· Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations - http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms

· Dictionary.com - http://www.dictionary.com/ Search dictionaries, grammar, usage, thesauri, and translators or browse the directory.

· Roget’s Thesaurus - http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/ROGET.html

· iTools Language Tools - http://www.itools.com/lang/ Dictionaries, translators, pronunciations, thesaurus, synonyms, rhymes, antonyms

· Strange and Unusual Dictionaries - http://blueray.com/dictionary/

Government Information

· Google “Uncle Sam” government Web site search - http://www.google.com/unclesam

· GovSpot – http://www.govspot.com Portal for U.S. government web sites

· Statistical Abstract of the United States - http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-us.html

· USgovsearch - http://usgovsearch.northernlight.com/publibaccess/ Through Northern Light search engine, search for government information.

Newspapers/News

· Internet Public Library Online Newspapers - http://www.ipl.org/reading/news/

· Journals with Free Archives on the Web. http://www.infotoday.com/fso/protected/freetitles.htm. From Information Today.

· Online Newspapers - http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ Find web sites for newspapers worldwide

· News Archives on the Web - http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/internet/archives.html Site maintained by the News Division of the Special Libraries Assn.

· Moreover - http://w.moreover.com/index.html A news portal. Search for top headlines by news topic or search the site for articles from top news sources.

Telephone Directories

· Anywho - http://www.anywho.com/index.html AT&T’s yellow page, white page, toll-free, reverse look-up, web site directory

· The Ultimates - http://www.theultimates.com/ U.S. only. Search several directories using one search query.

· Teldir.com - http://www.teldir.com/eng/ Worldwide coverage

**Familiarize yourself with NYPL’s electronic resources available at http://www.nypl.org/branch/eresources.html for free access to articles, reference books, biographical, historical, images and much, much more. All you need is a public library card.**

Tips for Using Search Engines

· Enter precise search terms by defining your question. The more specific you can be, the better. For example, if you are looking for information on a character on “Star Trek,” like “Dr. Spock” enter: “Star Trek” spock.

· It sometimes helps to start broad and narrow down to more specific terms by adding to your search query.

· Use “+” to require that the search results includes a term. All the major search engines support this symbol (and the minus symbol below) except for LookSmart.

o Example: +persian +cat

o Or “star trek” +spock

· Use quotation marks for phrases and proper names (example: “Britney Spears”). Alta Vista and Google recognize words as phrases, so you don’t have to add the quotation marks. It doesn’t hurt to use them though.

· Use “-“ to require that certain words DON’T appear in the results. For example, if you want information about
Barbra Streisand, and find you’re overwhelmed with results about her marriage to James Brolin, add “-Brolin” to the search. Continue to subtract terms from the results until you come up with more relevant hits.

· Use more than one search engine. Each will display different results.

· Use varied spellings and synonyms. Some search engines support “wild cards.” Instead of having to think of every version and tense of a word, can use the wildcard to place an asterisk (*) at the root of a word. For example, if you enter: ‘run*’ the search engine searches for ‘runner’ or ‘running’ or ‘runs’ or ‘rundown’ etc. Keep in mind that some of your hits may not be relevant, but this symbol will help broaden your results in many cases. The wildcard symbol (*) is supported by AOL Search, AltaVista, HotBot, MSN Search, Northern Light, Snap, Yahoo. You can’t use this feature on Excite, Google, GoTo, LookSmart, Lycos, or WebCrawler.

· Since most search engines will find plurals automatically, so in general, search in singular.

· When using simple searching on most search engines, don’t include “and.” Just enter the keywords in the order of importance to your search. For example, if you’re searching for nutritional information for cats, you might enter: ‘cats nutrition*’ instead of ‘nutrition cats.’

· Try various strategies and learn from your search results. Don’t stop if you don’t succeed with the first one or two searches. Research of any kind takes time and patience.

Search Engines and Portals

[For more information on search engines go to http://www.searchenginewatch.com]

· AOL Search – http://search.aol.com (AOL Anywhere page) or use the search option in the AOL software to search the Web and AOL content.

· Alta Vista – http://www.altavista.com is one of the largest search engines in terms of indexed Web pages.

· Ask Jeeves – http://www.askjeeves.com Human editors compile answers to search queries. “Users pose questions in plain English and receive links to Web sites containing relevant information, services and products. Ask Jeeves' combination of natural language question answering, human editorial judgment and popularity technology gives users the benefit of millions of previous searches. Growing smarter with each interaction, Ask Jeeves provides targeted, relevant responses to user queries.” Source: Ask Jeeves “About” page

· Direct Hit -- http://www.directhit.com/ is a popularity search engine, ranking search results by those most often clicked on by users of their site and partner sites. Direct Hit search results are also made available on HotBot, Iwon, Lycos, and MSN Snap. Click on either “top 10 results” or similar language.

· Excite – http://www.excite.com offers the same search results as Web Crawler and contains a lot of portal services like email, weather listings, stock prices, news, etc.

· Fast Search - http://www.alltheweb.com/ has one of the largest indexes on the Web. Fast offers search technology to portals. It also offers a mobile Web page search.

· *Google – http://www.google.com Google is a “popularity” search engine with one of the largest indexes on the Web. Google looks for links to sites from other sites on the Web and evaluates the source of these links for quality. The results display sites in the order of those most linked to by other sites. From the Google basic search explanation: “When Google analyzes a page, it looks at what those pages linking to that page have to say about it. Google also assigns higher relevance to pages in which your query terms appear near each other.” (Source: Google).

Really cool things you can do using Google:

· Download the Google Toolbar at http://www.google.com/options/toolbar.html (only available for Microsoft Explorer) for the following features:

o Google Search: Access Google's search technology from any web page.

o Site Search: Search only the pages of the site you're visiting.

o Word Find: Find your search terms wherever they appear on the page.

o Highlight: Highlight your search terms as they appear on the page, each word in its own color.

o PageRank: See Google's ranking of the current page.

o Page Info: Access more information about a page including similar pages, pages that link back to that page, as well as a cached snapshot.

(source: http://www.google.com/options/toolbar.html)

· Image search (new) – used “advanced search” page

· Translate web pages from the search box by clicking “Translate this page.”

· Get phone numbers, addresses by entering a personal or company name with city, area code, or zip code into the search box using the following formats:

o first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)

o first name (or first initial), last name, state

o first name (or first initial), last name, area code

o first name (or first initial), last name, zip code

o phone number, including area code

o last name, city, state

o last name, zip code

· Find PDF files using “file type: pdf” PDF files are readable in Adobe Acrobat (available free) and often contain high quality information in the form of reports, articles, etc. Example: “1040 filetype:pdf” to find IRS form 1040.

· Stock quotes – enter a ticker symbol and Google returns a link to stock price information from reliable resources.

· Similar pages – use GoogleScout by clicking on “Similar Pages” to find web pages with similar content, compare products, or want to quickly find more information about a topic without doing another search.

· Hotbot – http://www.hotbot.com has good features for users in the simple search on the home page. The first page of results is from Direct Hit (most popular). It also offers a browsable directory from the Open Directory (see below).

· Netscape – http://search.netscape.com Results from the Open Directory and Netscape’s “Smart Browsing” database. Secondary results from Google.

· *Northern Light – http://www.northernlight.com has a very large index of Web pages. It includes a “special collection” of journal articles available for a small fee. Also categorizes search results into folders by sub-category. Many other helpful features include a government Web site search and business searching by industry.

Directories – human compiled/categorized Web sites

· LookSmart - http://www.looksmart.com/

· Lycos - http://www.lycos.com/ uses Open Directory categories

· MSN Search - http://search.msn.com/ uses LookSmart categories

· Yahoo! – http://www.yahoo.com The largest human edited directory on the Web. Results from Yahoo categories are supplemented by search results from Google.

· DMOZ – http://dmoz.org Open Directory uses volunteer editors to select Web sites for categories. AOL, Netscape, and Lycos use the directory on their search sites.

Meta Search Engines – allow you to search more than one search engine at a time

· Ixquick – http://www.ixquick.com Results are the top 10 from various search engines

· Dogpile – http://www.dogpile.com Searches many search engines and displays results from each

· Metacrawler - http://www.metacrawler.com/index.html One of the oldest meta search engines

· Vivisimo - http://vivisimo.com/ New service that categories results from many search engines

· Search Engine Colossus - http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/ Links to search engines from 148 countries

Paid Listings Search Engines – companies pay to rank higher in the search results

· GoTo - Paid listings from GoTo also appear on other major search engines, including AltaVista, AOL Search, Lycos, HotBot and Netscape Search.

· FindWhat – Used by Excite and others

· Sprinks

· Iwon

See more paid listing companies and read more about paid listings at: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/Major_Search_Engines/Paid_Listings_Search_Engines/index.html

The “Invisible Web”

· Gary Price’s Direct Search - http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm

“direct search is a growing compilation of links to the search interfaces of resources that contain data not easily or entirely searchable/accessible from general search tools like Alta Vista, Google, or Hotbot. Although these "general" tools are essential for the retrieval of Internet based data, searchers often fail to realize that a massive amount of information is not easily or entirely searchable/accessible via these search tools. Material "hidden" from the general search tools is said to reside on the Invisible Web.” Source: Direct Search

· The Invisible Web Directory - http://www.invisible-web.net/

· The Invisible Web – http://www.invisibleweb.com

· Lycos Invisible Web Catalog - http://dir.lycos.com/Reference/Searchable_Databases/ Search more than 7,000 resources that are not visible to search engines. Note: be sure to check the "this category" radio button on the search form.

Credibility of Information on the Web

· Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet Checklist from The Virtual Chase - - http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/checklist.html

· Evaluating Information Found on the Internet – http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html

· Critical Evaluation of Resources - http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Evaluation.html

· Internet Detective - http://sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html

· Checklist for an informational web page - http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/inform.htm

· Checklist for a personal web page - http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/perspg.htm