Guide to Guitar Resources

Find here an overview of the guitar resources at the State Library with search tips.

See also

Scores for Loan

The State Library's collection of sheet music and scores for guitar is comprehensive. It covers classical guitar originals and arrangements, as well as jazz, world and contemporary tab material. The standard classical guitar repertoire is extensive and supplemented by scores of exercises, studies, scales and chord books, suites and variations. There is a range of tutors across all styles such as classical, folk, country, finger-picking, blues and slide, bluegrass, Hawaiian, Spanish and Flamenco. Song collections with simple guitar chord accompaniment are held in the vocal collection and are indexed exhaustively. We collect most works listed from Grade 4 and above in the Australian Music Examinations Board syllabus. There is also music for ensembles that include guitar.

Reference Material

Our collection of books, journals and electronic resources includes material on the history of the guitar from acoustic and classical through to contemporary instruments, information on construction, tuning, maintenance and technology, collecting and vintage guitars, biographies of composers and performers, performance technique, teaching, repertoire, literature and bibliographies.

Recordings

We hold a collection of CDs and LPs that can be listened to on-site. You can also listen to tracks using the on-line database Naxos Music Library. There is a small classical and jazz loan collection of audio cassettes available.

Searching

All material can be found using the catalogue.

Scores and recordings are best found by doing an author (i.e. composer) search. You may search by title, but you may not find all copies of the work if you only use one translation of the title, such as Aranjuez Concerto instead of Concierto de Aranjuez. Please use our Guide to Searching for Classical Music Scores as a starting point. All guitar music can be found at the classification TS.

You may also search by subject. For arrangements, add the term Arranged at the end of the subject. Useful subject searches are:

Find information by using the keyword or subject option. Useful subject and keyword searches are:

Guitar
Construction
History
Maintenance and repair
Flamenco
Guitarists
History and criticism
Guitar makers
Instruction and study

Page last updated: Friday 29 June 2012