If you want information about a particular tune, the first task is to identify the tune so that you can find it in the database. Click the Help button in the Tune Search section of the HTI Home Page to learn about the various ways of identifying your tune. When you have found the tune, its full form will be presented in numerical code (but without rhythm indications), often with comments including the composer’s name (if known). You may find that there are variant versions of the tune. From there you can go to a chronological list of citations (printings) of the tune, which will yield the following information:

• Earliest publication
• Texts used with this tune
• Names given to this tune
• Keys and voice settings in which it was published
• Complete publication history up to 1820

If you want to know what tunes were used with a certain text, the first task is to identify the text. Click the Help button in the Text Search section of the HTI Home Page to learn about ways of identifying your text. When you have found the text, you will be able to reach a list showing, in chronological order, all citations (printings of tunes) in which this was the primary designated text. It is an easy step from there to the tunes themselves.

If you want to know about a printed source of hymn tunes, such as a book or a piece of sheet music, the first task is to identify the source. Click the Help button in the Source Search section of the HTI Home Page to learn about ways of identifying the source. When you have found the source, you will be able to study a complete bibliographical description, often with notes about the compiler, function, date and other matters. From there you can go to a list of citations (printings of tunes) found in that source, with the tune name, text, attribution, key, and voice setting of each. It is an easy step from there to look up the tunes themselves.

If you want to know about a composer of hymn tunes, and what tunes he or she composed, the first task is to identify the composer. Click the Help button in the Composer Search section of the HTI Home Page to learn about ways of identifying the composer. You can choose either to look for tunes definitely known to have been written by this composer, or for tunes attributed to this composer (rightly or wrongly) in any printed source. In either case it is an easy step from the list of citations (printings of tunes) to the tunes themselves.