Discography is the study and cataloging of published

sound recordings Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, Mechanical system, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of ...

, often by specified artists or within identified

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

s. The exact information included varies depending on the type and scope of the discography, but a discography entry for a specific recording will often list such details as the names of the artists involved, the time and place of the recording, the title of the piece performed, release dates, chart positions, and sales figures.Roy Shuker.
Popular Music: The Key Concepts
'. Routledge, 2005. 80. A discography can also refer to the recordings catalogue of an individual artist, group, or orchestra. This is distinct from a sessionography, which is a catalogue of

recording sessions A studio recording, or a recording session is any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance. Studio cast recordings In the case o ...

, rather than a catalogue of the records, in whatever medium, that are made from those recordings. The two are sometimes confused, especially in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

, as specific release dates for jazz records are often difficult to ascertain, and session dates are substituted as a means of organizing an artist's catalogue. Another, more recent, definition of discography refers to a collection of musical recordings by a performer or composer, considered as a body of work. For instance, all studio

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

s by a performer could collectively be considered their discography. A compilation of a performer's

piano roll A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note contro ...

s is called a "rollography."

History

The term "discography" was popularized in the

1930s File:1930s decade montage.png, From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Owens Thompson, Florence Thompson shows the effects of the Great Depression; due to extreme drought conditions, farms across the south-central Uni ...

by collectors of

records, i.e. 'to study and write about the discs of music'. Jazz fans did research and self-published discographies about when jazz records were made and what musicians were on the records, as record companies did not commonly include that information on or with the records at that time. Two early jazz discographies were ''Rhythm on Record'' by

Hilton Schleman Henry Hilton Roy Schleman (February 1905 – 10 February 1952) was an English publicity agent, air force officer, editor, and author who wrote on early 20th-century jazz music. Early life Born at Bush Hill Park, Middlesex, the only son of Henry An ...

and ''Hot Discography'' by

Charles Delaunay Charles Delaunay (18 January 1911 – 16 February 1988) was a French author, jazz expert, co-founder and long-term leader of the Hot Club de France. Biography Born in Paris, France, the son of painters Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, Charl ...

.John Shepard, et al.
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
'. Continuum, 2003. 14.

Notable books of discography

The following books list detailed information on the complete discographies of specific record labels, music scenes or genres. *Allen, Walter C. - Hendersonia: The Music of Fletcher Henderson and his Musicians, A Bio-discography, Jazz Monographs No. 4, Highland Park, N.J.: Walter C. Allen, 1973. *Andrews, Frank - Columbia 10" records, 1904-30. ondon City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, 1985 *Arnold, Claude Graveley - The Orchestra on Record, 1896-1926: An Encyclopedia of Orchestral Recordings Made by the Acoustical Process,

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG) was an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which was part of ABC-Clio. Since 2021, ABC-Clio and its suite of imprints, including GPG, are collectively imprints of B ...

1997 *Badrock, Arthur and Andrews, Frank - The "Cinch" Record (September 1913 - January 1916) ondon City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, 2000 *Badrock, Arthur - Tower Records (1920-1922) published by the author, Norwich, 2001 *Balacco, Thomas - Aussie Vinyl Record Guide published by Hardshell Publishing, 2016 - *Balacco, Thomas - Australia/NZ Vinyl Record Guide published by Hardshell Publishing, 2024 - *Barr, Steven C. - The (Almost) Complete 78 r.p.m. Record Dating Guide. Second ed. oronto, Ont. S.C. Barr, 1980. 51 p. Without ISBN *Barr, Steven C. - Canadian and Canadian-U.S. Label Numerical Correlations f78 r.p.m. isc recordings. Toronto, Ont.: S.C. Barr1983. 4 p. *Bauer, Roberto - The New Catalogue of Historical Records, 1898-1908/09. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1947. 494 p. SBN (as found in the 1972 printing) 283-48420-9 *Brooks, Tim - Little Wonder Records, The New Amberola Phonograph Company 1999 *Connor, D. Russell and Hicks, Warren W. - BG On The Record; A bio-discography of Benny Goodman, Arlington House 1969 * *Daniels, Bill - Disc Dating Guide, 1940-1949. Oak Lawn Books, Providence, R.I., 1981 *Dethlefson, Ronald - Edison Blue Amberol Recordings 1912-1914, (2nd Edition) Stationery X-Press 1997 *Díaz-Ayala, Cristóbal - '' Encyclopedic Discography of Cuban Music, Vol. 1 (1898-1925)''. Florida International University, 2014. *Díaz-Ayala, Cristóbal - '' Encyclopedic Discography of Cuban Music, Vol. 2 (1925-1960)''. Florida International University, 2014. *Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich and Howard W. Rye - Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943, 4th ed., Clarendon Press 1997. ''N.B''.: An informative narrative of blues recording activity is ''Recording the Blues'', by two of these authors, ''i.e''. Dixon and Godrich (London: Studio Vista, 1970, 85 amply ill. p.) *Emery, Marc - Jazz ndBlues Catalog. London, Ont.: City Lights Bookshop,

a. 1978 A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * ''A'' value, a measure of s ...

''N.B''.: Sale catalogue of a large and comprehensive collection of LP discs formerly held by a private collector; there are fairly numerous name and title spelling errors, but it constitutes a good brief-listed discography of the genre *Fagan, Ted and Moran, William - The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records vol. 1,

1983 *Fagan, Ted and Moran, William - The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records vol. 2,

1986 *Fancourt, Les and Bob McGrath - The Blues Discography 1943-1970, Eyeball Productions 2006 *Fancourt, Leslie
British Blues 1950s to 1970: A Selective Discography
self-published 2021. ''N.B.'' Foreword by Neil Slaven *Foreman, Lewis - ''Systematic Discography''. London, C. Bingley, 1974. 144 p. N.B. This is an instructional and style manual to aid its user in mastering or improving a researcher's discographical skills. *Guterman, Jimmy, and Owen O'Donnell - The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time: a Fan's Guide to the Stuff

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

You Love to Hate! in series: ''Citadel Press Book'' 's'' New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991. ''N.B''.: Annotated discography. *Haas, Lük - Discography of Eastern European Punk Music 1977-1999, Tian An Men 89, Strasbourg, France 2000. *Hall, Ron - The CHUM Chart Book: a Complete Listing of Every Record To Make the 'CHUM Chart' from Its Beginning on 27 May 1957 through 14 June 1986. Eticobicoke, Ont.: Stardust Productions, 1990. ''N.B''.: On front cover: "CHUM's

adio station Adio may refer to: Government *Abu Dhabi Investment Office, a government investments and special projects entity based in Abu Dhabi Business *Adio (company), the former skateboard footwear and apparel company Music Songs * "Adio" (song), a song ...

dial 1050, Hit Parade". Without ISBN *Harris, Steve - Film, Television, and Stage Music on Phonograph Records: a Discography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1988. ix, 445 p. *Harrison, Max, 'et al''.- ''Modern Jazz: the Essential Records, 1945-1970, a Critical Selection''. London: Aquarius Books, 1975. 131, p. ''N.B''.: Subtitle combined from t.p. and a portion of the cover subtitle statement. This discography is annotated. *Jepsen, Jorgen Grunnet - Jazz Records, 1942-196x, Karl Emil Knudsen 1963-1970 *Jones, Mark - Bristol Folk: a Discographical History of Bristol Folk Music in the 1960s and 1970s, Bristol Folk Publications 2009 *Jones, Mark - The Famous Charisma Discography, The Record Press 2010. ''N.B.'' Forewords by

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. He received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 and was knig ...

and Chris Adams *Jones, Mark - The Saydisc and Village Thing Discography, The Record Press 2010 *Jones, Mark - Transacord: Sounds of Steam, The Record Press 2011. ''N.B.'' This was published with a free CD of examples from the Transacord archive *Jones, Mark - The Virgin Discography: the 1970s, The Record Press 2013 *Jones, Mark - The B&C Discography 1968-1975, The Record Press 2013. ''N.B.'' Nominated for a 2014

Association for Recorded Sound Collections Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

excellence award (rock music discographies). *Jones, Mark - The Immediate Discography: the First 20 Years, The Record Press 2016. ''N.B.'' Winner of the 2017

award for excellence (rock music discographies). *Jones, Mark - The B&C Discography 1968-1975 (expanded 2nd Ed.), The Record Press 2015. *Jones, Mark - The British Classical Record Industry, 1945 to 1959, The Record Press 2020. ''N.B.'' A finalist in the 2021

excellence award (best historical research in recorded classical). *Jones, Mark - Blues from the Avon Delta: the Matchbox Blues Story, The Record Press 2021 *Kennedy, Ted - ''Canada Pop Weekly: the Record ccording to"R.P.M." agazine'' Kelowna, B.C.: Canadian Chart Research, 992? 595 p. *Kennedy, Ted - ''Charts Canada: "R.P.M." agazine the Record''. Kelowna, B.C.: Canadian Chart Research,

989 Year 989 ( CMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Emperor Basil II uses his contingent of 6,000 Varangians to help him defeat Bardas Phokas (the Younger), who suffe ...

293, p. *Kennedy, Ted - ''Country Canada: the Record ccording to"R.P.M." agazine'' Kelowna, B.C.: Canadian Chart Research, 992? 437 oblong p. *Kennedy, Ted - ''Maple Music: the Record ccording to"R.P.M." agazine'' Kelowna, B.C.: Canadian Chart Research,

992 Year 992 ( CMXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Worldwide * Winter – A superflare from the sun causes an Aurora Borealis, with visibility as far south as Germany and Korea. Euro ...

572, 6oblong p. ''N.B''.: "'Maple Music' is rimarily listing of every song to enter the national top 40 pop record charts in North America with primary analysis on Canadian charts from 'R.P.M.' agazineand 'The Record'." *Koenigsberg, Allen - Edison Cylinder Records 1889-1912, (2nd Edition) APM Press 1987 *Ledbitter, Mike, & Slaven, Neil - Blues Records: 1943-1966, Oak Publications 1968 *Laird, Ross - Tantalizing Tingles A Discography of Early Ragtime, Jazz, and Novelty Syncopated Piano Recordings, 1889-1934,

1995 *Laird, Ross - Moanin'Low; A discography of female popular vocal recordings 1920-1933,

1996 *Laird, Ross - Brunswick records: a discography of recordings, 1916-1931,

, 2001. *Laird, Ross & Rust, Brian - Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934. By Ross Laird and Brian Rust. Praeger, 2004 *Legere, Bill - Record Collectors Guide of Country LPs. Limited ed. Mississauga, Ont.: W.J. Legere, 1977. 269, 25, 29, 2 p., perforated and looseleaf. Without ISBN *Legere, Bill - E ectricalT nscription: Transcription Library of Bill Legere. Mississauga, Ont.: B. Legere,

977 Year 977 ( CMLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * May – Boris II, dethroned emperor (''tsar'') of Bulgaria, and his brother Roman manage to escape from captivity in Const ...

3 vols., each of which is perforated and looseleaf. ''N.B''.: Vol. 1-2, Country Artists—vol. 2, Pop Artists. Without ISBN *Lyons, Len - ''The 101 Best Jazz Albums: a History of Jazz on Records'', New York: W. Morrow & Co., 1980. 476 p., ill. with b&w photos. pbk *Lyttle, Brendan - A Chartology of Canadian Popular Music, Part Two, 1977 to 1980. Record Research Services, Calgary, 980?*McDonald, Ian - British Railways on Vinyl: 1931 to 1989, The Record Press 2013 *Moody, Pete - Memphis Minnie: the Life & Recording History of the Great Female Country Blues Singer, Sunflower 1967 *Moody, Pete - Big Maceo: Chicago Blues Pianist, 1905-1953 - His Life & Recording History, Sunflower 1968 *Moogk, Edward Balthasar - Roll Back the Years: History of Canadian Recorded Sound and Its Legacy, Genesis to 1930. Ottawa, Ont.: National Library of Canada, 1975. ''N.B''.: In part, also, a bio-discography; the hardback ed. comes with a "phonodisc of historical Canadian recordings" (33 1/3 r.p.m., mono., 17 cm.) which the 1980 pbk. reprint lacks. (pbk.) *Moogk, Edith Kathryn - Title Index to Canadian Works Listed in Edward B. Moogk's ''Roll Back the Years, History of Canadian Recorded Sound, Genesis to 1930'', in series, ''C.A.M.L. Occasional Papers'', no. 1. Ottawa, Ont.: Canadian Association of Music Libraries, 1988. ''N.B''.: The t.p. and fore-matter also in French; supplements the index within E. B. Moogk's book. *Moses, Julian Morton - American Celebrity Recordings 1900-1925, Monarch Record Enterprises, 1993 *Palm, Jim - Railways on Record, Avon-Anglia Publications & Services 1980 * Propes, Steve - Golden Oldies: a Guide to 90s & 90s Popular Rock & Roll Record Collecting. First ed. Radnor, Penn.: Chilton Book Co., 1975. pbk. *Rockwell, T. Malcolm - Hawaiian & Hawaiian Guitar Records 1891-1960, Mahina Piha Press, 2007 *Ruppli, Michel - Atlantic Records,

1979 *Ruppli, Michel - The Savoy Labels,

1980 *Ruppli, Michel & Porter, Bob - The Prestige Label,

1980 *Ruppli, Michel - The Chess Labels,

1983 *Ruppli, Michel - The King Labels,

1985 *Ruppli, Michel - The Clef/Verve Labels,

1986 *Ruppli, Michel - The Aladdin/Imperial Labels,

1991 *Ruppli, Michel & Novitsky, Ed - The Mercury Labels,

1993 *Ruppli, Michel - The Decca Labels,

1996 *Ruppli, Michel & Novitsky, Ed - The MGM Labels,

1998 *Ruppli, Michel, Daniels, Bill & Novitsky, Ed - The Capitol Label Discography, Names & Numbers, 2007 *Russell, Tony - Country Music Records; A discography, 1921-1942, Oxford University Press, 2004 * Rust, Brian - The Victor Master Book Vol. 2, published by the author, 1969 *Rust, Brian - The American Dance Band Discography, Arlington House 1975 *Rust, Brian - London Musical Shows On Record 1897 - 1976, General Gramophone Publications 1977 *Rust, Brian - British Music Hall On Record, General Gramophone Publications 1979 * *Rust, Brian and Forbes, Sandy - British Dance Bands On Record 1911 to 1945, General Gramophone Publications 1987 *Rust, Brian and Debus, Allen G. - The Complete Entertainment Discography from 1897 to 1942, (2nd Edition) Da Capo Press 1989 *Rust, Brian & Brooks, Tim - The Columbia Master Book Discography,

, 1999. *Rust, Brian - Jazz and Ragtime Records (1897 - 1942), (6th Edition) Mainspring Press 2003 *Smith, Bente - Cue Track: the Canadian Record & Tape Guide. French trans.

f the introd. F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounce ...

by Inge K. Nielsen. First ed. Winnipeg, Man.: Cue Track, 1980. Without ISBN or ISSN *Sutton, Allan - Cakewalks, Rags and Novelties; The International Ragtime Discography (1894 - 1930), Mainspring Press 2004 *Tolley, Trevor - Discographical Essays, Seven Willows,

009 009 may refer to: * OO9, gauge model railways * O09, FAA identifier for Round Valley Airport * 0O9, FAA identifier for Ward Field, see List of airports in California * British secret agent 009, see 00 Agent * BA 009, see British Airways Flight ...

Web discographies

Notable online music databases include

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

(community-built),

freedb Freedb was a database of User-generated content, user-submitted compact disc track listings, where all the content was under the GNU General Public License. To look up CD information over the Internet, a client program calculated a hash function fr ...

Gracenote Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video, and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base"), Gracenote ...

MusicBrainz MusicBrainz is a MetaBrainz project that aims to create a collaborative music database that is similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the restrictions placed on the CDDB, Compact Disc Database (CDDB), a database for ...

(community-built) and

Rate Your Music Rate Your Music (often abbreviated to RYM) is an online encyclopedia of music releases and films. Users can catalog items from their personal collection, review them, and assign ratings in a five-star rating system. The site also features comm ...

(community-built).

References

External links

"Magnificent Obsession: The Discographers"
article by Jerry Atkins
The Encyclopaedic Discography of Victor Recordings
- a continuation of the two volumes listed in the bibliography *The Music Discographies at bjbear71.com - http://bjbear71.com *Budget Labels Article, regarding false discographic details on some
low-priced classical recordings
*The Discographic "Den of Horrors" relating to
Bruckner recordings
{{Authority control

History

Notable books of discography

Web discographies

See also

References

External links