Miscellaneous Datasets

There are plenty of other datasets on all aspects of music history – surveys of publishers, dictionaries of musical themes, instrument catalogues, among others. Here is a selection.

DatasetComments
Psalms in metre (1644)1Psalm tunes and incipits – one of the earliest examples of a thematic catalogue. Available at Google Books.
Breitkopf Catalogue (1762)2Thematic catalogue of Breitkopf’s publications (about 14,000)
Bartók (c.1905)3Over 3,000 Romanian folk music melodies collected by Bartók
Cecil Sharp (1903–23)45,000+ English folk songs collected by Cecil Sharp
Dictionary of Musical Themes (1948-50)59,800 instrumental themes,  6,500 vocal themes. Designed to identify themes from a short series of pitches.
Directory of Classical Themes (1975)6About 10,000 musical themes (based on previous entry). Designed to identify themes from Up/Down/Repeat sequence.
ABC TunefinderMeta-search for folk-tunes in ABC format.
PeachnoteTheme finder, covering 160,000 works in music files from IMSLP and elsewhere
ThemefinderFolk, Classical and Motet themes – 35,000 incipits
Classical MidiCollection of around 3,000 MIDI files of works by over 200 composers, including biographical information on many.
British publishers (1900)7A survey of about 500 British music publishers. Available at archive.org
Publishing in the British Isles (1970)8Survey of about 2,200 British music publishers, printers, etc to 1850.
Victorian music publishers (1990)9Survey of about 1,500 British music publishers 1830–1900.
Harpsichords and clavichords (1440-1840)10Survey of harpsichord and clavichord makers and about 2,000 surviving instruments.
Boalch-Mould OnlineOnline and updated version of the previous entry, covering over 2,400 early keyboard instruments. See also this article.
Early Pianos OnlineDetails of over 9,000 pre-1860 pianos, and over 5,000 piano makers, based on the two Makers of the Piano books by Martha Clinkscale.11 Sister database to Boalch-Mould Online (above).
Historical woodwind instruments12Inventory of 200 makers and 4,900 woodwind instruments.
Wind Instrument Makers DatabaseData on around 8,000 makers of wind instruments, based on the print Langwill Index.13 Sister database to Boalch-Mould Online (above).
Trombone DatabaseDetails of over 200 trombones built before 1800.
Medieval Instruments (400-1500)14Survey of 500+ extant medieval instruments.
Minim-UKOnline catalogue of over 22,000 musical instruments in UK collections with links, photographs and other details
Listening Experience DatabaseDatabase covering individuals’ experiences of listening to music
Music Lyrics DatabaseLyrics of almost a quarter of a million songs by over 11,000 artists
Lyrics.comAnother song lyrics site. Claims to be the largest, although unclear how many songs are included.
Genius.comAnother song lyrics site, also claiming to be the largest, and also unclear how many songs are included!
Get Song Key and Get Song BPMLinked websites using the same database of over 6 million songs, telling you the key and tempo (beats per minute), plus other statistics and links
Doctoral Dissertations in MusicologyDetails of around 15,000 theses and dissertations from the last 100 years or so
Music SubscribersSubscribers to 18C music publications in Britain and Ireland, containing 160,000 entries.
Music SackA large searchable linked database of people, books, venues and performances. Tricky to sample from, but consistently formatted and good quality.
UK Amateur OrchestrasA list of over 1,600 UK amateur orchestras, organised by region, with locations, contact details and other information.
British Choirs on the NetListing of over 4,000 British choirs, links to their webpages, and other free-text information.
Cite this article as: Gustar, A.J. 'Miscellaneous Datasets' in Statistics in Historical Musicology, 14th July 2017, https://musichistorystats.com/resources/datasets/miscellaneous/.
  1. Barton, W. 1644. The Book of Psalms in metre. London: Matthew Simmons for the Company of Stationers.
  2. Breitkopf & Co. 1762–65. Catalogo delle sinfonie, partite, overture, soli, duetti, trii, quattri e concerti per il violin, flauto traverse, cembalo ed altri stromenti, che si trovano in manuscritto nella Officina musica di Giovanni Gottlob breitkopf in Lipsia. Leipzig
  3. Bartók, B. 1967. Rumanian folk music (3 volumes). Suchoff, B. (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
  4. Sharp, C. J. 1974. Cecil Sharp’s Collection of English Folk Songs. Edited by Maud Karpeles. London: Oxford University Press.
  5. Barlow, H. & Morgenstern, S. 1948. A Dictionary of Musical Themes. New York: Crown.
    Barlow, H. & Morgenstern, S. 1950. A Dictionary of Vocal Themes. New York: Crown.
  6. Parsons, D. 2008. The Directory of Classical Themes. London: Piatkus.
  7. Kidson, F. 1900. British music publishers, printers and engravers: London, Provincial, Scottish, and Irish. London: W.E.Hill & Sons.
  8. Humphries, C. & Smith, W. C. 1970. Music publishing in the British Isles from the earliest times to the middle of the nineteenth century: A dictionary of engravers, printers, publishers and music sellers, with a historical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  9. Parkinson, J. A. 1990. Victorian Music Publishers: an annotated list. Michigan: Harmonie Park Press.
  10. Boalch, D. H. 1995. Makers of the harpsichord and clavichord 1440-1840 (third edition). Oxford: Clarendon
  11. Clinkscale, M. N. 1993. Makers of the Piano 1700–1820. Oxford: Oxford University Press; and
    Clinkscale, M. N. 1999. Makers of the Piano, Volume 2, 1820–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  12. Young, P. T. 1993. 4900 historical woodwind instruments: an inventory of 200 makers in international collections. London: T. Bingham
  13. Langwill, L. G. 1980. An Index of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers, 6th ed. Edinburgh: The Author.
  14. Crane, F. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. University of Iowa Press