The Search Page

1. FreeText search

FreeText search corresponds, broadly speaking, to the “fuzzy search” paradigm. FreeText search automatically expands your search terms to include noun conjugations (for example plurals, gender and case) and verb declensions (for example run, running, ran). Proximity of search terms is also factored into the rank of returned elements. For example, when your search terms are “Johann Sebastian Bach”, a found element containing the full name “Johann Sebastian Bach” or the text “Johann Sebastian is the most famous of the Bachs” will rank higher than a mere reference to “Bach”.

This application (“The Search Page”) provides for the separate FreeText searching of works and publications. The “works” of a composer are those entities that are documented (or should be documented) in a catalogue of the composer’s works. A “publication” is a published edition of a single work or a chosen set of works which is usually designed to serve as a performance score.

You should use FreeText search when you have several terms that are relevant to the target but which should be regarded as independent of one another by the search engine. That is to say, when the order in which you present the terms is not significant. This would be the case, for example, when you are making a search for works that address a particular broad subject. If you were seeking songs about country life in Britain, you might use the search string “hill dale mountain brook daffodil England” . FreeText search will not attach significance to the ordering of the search terms. However, this is an example of a bad search string. First of all, there are too many terms. The fewer, the more specific and the more relevant to the target are the search terms, the better the result will be.

FreeText searching of works permits the use of one (and only one) “and” operator. The “and” operator can be very useful when searching for the works of a composer that address a particular subject. For example, you might wish to find the works in which J.S. Bach addresses the subject of “Jesu”. Your search string could be “Bach and Jesu”. It is likely that J.S. Bach was not only Bach to address that subject and the result of the search could contain results for other composers also called Bach. You might wish to be more specific and seek works for which the title contains the words “Jesu” and “meine”. Your search string would then be “Bach and Jesu meine”. Or it could be “Bach and meine Jesu”. With FreeText search, the works found will be the same in both cases.

FreeText searching of publications permits the use of up to two “and” operators. When searching publications you may wish to find scores for works by Bach in which the title contains the words “Jesu meine” and which are published by Novello. In this case your search string would be “Bach and Jesu meine and Novello”. The list of scores returned would have either in the title of the publication or in the name of a work included in the publication the words “Jesu meine”, would include a work composed by Bach and would be published by Novello or, perhaps, have an editor whose name was “Novello”.

The best way to learn how to use The Search Page is to try various searches. If you specify a search badly, nothing may be found, or nothing relevant may be found.

2. Contains search

A Contains search looks for occurrences of just the search terms you give. If you enter “Johann S. Bach” it is likely that nothing will be returned, even if there are many targets for “Johann Sebastian Bach” and “J.S. Bach”. Use a Contains search when you have a title that is sufficiently different from any other. For example, you may wish to find works for Peter Allen’s song “I Still Call Australia Home”. The string “call Australia home” will do the job nicely. If you seek a score published by Rondor Music International you can enter “call Australia home and Rondor”. If you seek a score for Jesu Meine Freude you can enter the search string “Jesu Meine Freude”. A compact result set is returned, but it includes scores for the work composed by Buxtehude as well as the one by Bach. Use of the “and” operator assists. “Jesu Meine Freude and Bach” returns scores for only Bach’s work. Just as for FreeText search of scores, the search string “Jesu Meine Freude and Bach and Kalmus” returns only the scores published by Alfred A. Kalmus Ltd.

3. The search indexes

When you open a page for a score found by search, entries similar to the following are displayed at the bottom of the page:
SEARCHTEXT: Jesu Meine Freude; arranged for SATB; languages English German; Vocal score; keywords Motet
SEARCHPUBLISHER: Alfred A. Kalmus Ltd.; Tonbridge, Kent, ENGLAND
SEARCHCRNAMES: Johann Sebastian Bach composer
SEARCHWKNAMES: Jesu Meine Freude; Motet No. 3; Jesus, Priceless Treasure; Jesu, Priceless Treasure

These are the search texts that have been constructed in the database and which have been indexed for the two kinds of full text search. They are displayed on the page to enable you to gain insight into the way the search texts have been constructed and to give you hints as to how to construct your searches. You see that, in the case of the particular score for Bach’s Jesu Meine Freude, the text “Johann Sebastian Bach composer” appears. Generally speaking, whenever the names of persons who had a role in the production of the score are known (be they the composers, writers, arrangers or editors), they will appear against “SEARCHCRNAMES” with a description of the role played. So, in a page for another score one finds:
SEARCHCRNAMES: Johann Sebastian Bach composer; Walter Buszin writer; Walter Neumann editor.

This feature can be very useful. You may wish to find the scores for which Benjamin Britten was the arranger. The search string “Britten arranger” will answer that question. You should not use the string “Britten and arranger” because you will then find all the scores with which Britten is associated (without reference to role) and which acknowledge an arranger (not necessarily Benjamin Britten).

Works too will show you the search texts that have been constructed and indexed. If you search works using the search string “bach and b minor” and then select from the returned list the page for the B Minor Mass you will see the following search texts:
SEARCHTEXT: Mass in B Minor; aka Messe H-Moll; B Minor Mass; BWV 232; Mass; solo SSATB; choir SSATB; accomp Orchestra; lang Latin;
SEARCHCRNAMES: Johann Sebastian Bach

These texts reveal some conventions that have been used in the compilation of the content of the database. For example, you will find the phrases “solo SSATB” and “choir SSATB” in the texts for the B Minor Mass. In general, in the compilation of information about works, the voicing has been recorded as shown here. This gives a clue as to how you might search the database for a particular repertoire. If you wished to see all that was available for a choir in the four voices soprano, alto, tenor, base, you could search using “choir satb”. Your search would certainly return results, but you would also receive the following message: “ContainsText works search: 150 found using search string 'choir satb': the result set may have been truncated. Please refine your search key and try again.” You would have to consider other search terms to employ in addition in order to reduce your result set to less than 150.

Users of The Search Page should be aware that the conventions pointed to here have, in all probability, not been applied everywhere they might have been or have been applied inconsistently. Where users find or suspect such errors or omissions, they should contact the service provider. Where users of The Search Page conceive of new conventions or modifications to existing conventions that would improve searches, the service provider should be advised. Email editor@earthchoirs.info.