On this page you find information about Simple Search, Advanced Search, Search Result, Display, How to Search for Music Incipits and Abbreviations.

The single search slot is intended to conduct an undifferentiated full-text search.
Truncation and search by phrase are possible.

This sort of search is possible with three slots, which can be assigned to the indices indicated by opening the windows. Truncation and search by phrase are possible.

Indices:

The result is given in a numbered list arranged by composer. As well as the composer, the title, key, an abbreviated instrumentation, the library siglum and the shelfmark are also shown.

You can refine the result by using the navigators (genre, composer, type of material, instrumentation, location) on the left.

By clicking you come to the

The display shows the entire entry including incipits. It is arranged in blocks.

At the beginning is the composer, and at the end the place where the source is held and the shelfmark.

By clicking on terms marked with i and highlighted in blue you open a window with further information.

If the caption “In Collection” appears, it means that the work described is part of a manuscript collection or collective edition. By clicking on the blue number indicated you come to the main entry of the collection. From there, you can call up any of the works surviving in the collection.

See the table of abbreviations below as required.

RISM has published the guidelines on which the descriptions are based on its website.  

The search for the music incipit (beginning notes) of a composition is only concerned with pitches. The search is based on the progression of pitches and does not take into account any other search parameters, such as rhythm or accidentals. This way, the number of hits is increased and entering the search terms is considerably easier.

Selecting the option “Music incipit (with transposition)” will also include incipits that have been transposed from the initial search inquiry.

You may enter either upper or lower case letters. For the English note name “B,” either “B” or the German “H” may be used. Grace notes and ornaments are ignored. The search is truncated right.

Examples:

a.

Search term: “fgfbagfa” (Music incipit)

b.

Search term: “cdefgfead” (Music incipit) or “defgagfhe” (Music incipit (with transposition)).

Tips and tricks:
The number of hits depends on the length of the search term. Your results will be more effective if you enter 7 notes or more, depending on the incipit.

The music incipits in RISM are not standardised in any way. Instead, they reflect the incipits as they appear in the sources themselves. Accordingly, there may be slight variations among different copies of what is essentially the same work.

Not every source described in the RISM catalogue includes a music incipit.

The incipit search does not differentiate between different octaves. A search for the notes “cf” will find both the upper fourth and the lower fifth. For that reason, trivial broken triads will only make navigating the number of hits difficult.

You can make a search especially effective by combining the incipit search with the search filters of the RISM online catalogue.

The RISM online catalogue currently contains over 1.1 million music incipits.