Tips and Tricks for Searching

We've recently changed our search engine to allow exact phrase searching and title searching. Here are some pointers to help you find things more easily.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

• our search engine does not use quotes (") apostrophes (') commas (,) or slashes (/)
• we generally do not put in 'the', 'a' or 'an' at the beginning of a title
• remove these before searching. e.g. use the search term lords supper and not the lord's supper
• our search engine is NOT case sensitive i.e. Daniel, daniel, and DANIEL are all the same

NOTE: If the item you're searching for is not coming up, it is likely available by special order. Please call us at 1-800-665-8995 to talk to a staff member Monday - Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Central time.

Searching by Item Number / Product Code

If you've been looking at a publisher web site (such as Alfred, Hal Leonard or Hope), and know the product code for the piece you want, you can type that into the search engine.

IMPORTANT: You have to select All from the Search Fields option for this to work.

Helpful Tips:

• When searching for Beckenhorst titles, if there is no letter at the beginning of the product code, add BP (i.e.: 1480 becomes bp1480)
• When searching for Lorenz titles, leave out the slash (i.e.: 65/2004L becomes 652004L)
• When searching for Hal Leonard titles, leave off the HL at the beginning (i.e. HL00311842 becomes 00311842)
• When searching for Alfred titles, leave off the 00 at the beginning (i.e. 00-29367 becomes 29367)
• When searching for Shawnee and Hope titles, type in the product code they provide on their site (i.e. c5568 or a8659)
• If we've given you a product code via e-mail or phone, only enter the part before the dash i.e. C5158-113 becomes C5158

Searching by Title

If you know the exact title, or a phrase out of the middle of it (such as star carol or at the table) type that phrase in the Keyword(s) box and choose the options for Exact Phrase and Title Only before clicking the Search button.

Remember: Less is more when using an exact phrase search. If you're not sure if the word in the middle of your title is 'of' or 'an' or 'the' or 'in', (such as The Light In The Piazza) pick the single most critical word to title search on, like piazza.

Using Search By Title to find specific composers or voicings (see note)

Our naming convention here at Canadian Choral Centre for document titles on the web is usually:

• SONG TITLE - VOICING - COMPOSER (last name) - ARRANGER (last name)

With this in mind, you can use the Title Only search function to find octavos and collections arranged or composed by a specific person.

For example, to search for works by Craig Cassils, you would type cassils into the Keyword(s) box, and choose the Exact Phrase and Title Only options before clicking the Search button.

Note: You can also use this function to search by voicing in the same way by putting SATB or SAB or TTBB into the Keyword(s) box and choosing the options for Exact Phrase and Title Only before clicking the Search button. However, this may not capture pieces with optional voicings such as (T)TBB.

Using Exact Phrase to find octavos AND songs in collections

Sometimes you'll be looking for a song that is common enough that we might have it as both an octavo and part of a collection. This is very common with Christmas carols and folk songs or spirituals.

For example, Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel is a very popular spiritual piece that appears in several collections and multiple arrangements in our catalog.

To search for a particular song in our entire inventory (we'll use the example above), try typing deliver daniel (remember, less is more when searching on titles) in the Keyword(s) field, selecting the Exact Phrase option - but this time, we'll choose the All option before clicking the Search button.

Note: Not every collection will have a full song listing, but we're working on updating this.