Item Detail
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Parsons, Denys
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The directory of tunes and musical themes
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Book
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Cambridge, Mass.
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1975
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S. Brown
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288 p. : music ; 24 cm.
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English
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090474700X
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Instrumental music--Thematic catalogs.
Vocal music--Thematic catalogs. -
Instruments; Instrumental Music; Voice; Vocal Music; Tunes; Musical Themes
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ML 128 .I65 P33 1975
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Parsons, Denys. Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes. With an introduction by Bernard Levin. Cambridge: Spencer Brown and Co., 1975.
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A directory for amateurs and musicians to find the name or title of a musical tune or theme. Ability to read music not required.
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Includes over ten thousand classical themes, almost four thousand popular tunes/themes up to 1973, and one hundred national themes.
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Followed by an Introduction and Preface are a few pages of How to Use the Directory. Directories for popular and national themes follow a directory of classical themes. The national themes directory includes actual musical examples for each country in alphabetical order. Themes are organized by melodic pattern, using D for a note going down, U for a note going up, and R for a note that repeats. The first note of the theme is an asterisk (*). Thus, the first entry is: *DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD followed by the composer and the piece or if a popular tune, the title, musical group or soloist, and the year. The next entry would be *DDDDU DDDDD DDDDD, etc.
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The list is a rather extensive, including the main themes of over 10,000 musical works. Due to the system of only needing to know whether the pitch goes up, down, or repeats, the researcher does not need extensive musical training to be able to transpose the tunes and themes to the key of C to compare.
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The book does not have multiple points of access.
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Berman, Marsha. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 33 (March 1977): 601.http://www.jstor.org/stable/897486
Fry, Stephen M. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 32 (March 1976): 556-57.http://www.jstor.org/stable/898003 -
BYU Mus Ref
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4014