If you want to know what tunes were used with a certain text, the first task is to identify the text. When you have found the text or texts, use the checkboxes to select them, then click on the Submit button of the Find Citations form at the bottom of this page, 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 know the first 4-6 words of the text, search:
- Find texts where the - HTI Text Code - starts with - (type initial letters of the first first 4, 5, or 6 words)
- Example: "All people that on earth do dwell" = "APTOED"
- If you are more confident of another word or string of words in the first two lines of the hymn, search:
- Find texts where the - Text - contains - (type two or three CONSECUTIVE words from the first two lines)
- If you can't find the text by these methods, this may be because of the HTI Text Conventions. Or it may be because the text was used with this tune only in books printed after 1820.
- The HTI is not an index of hymn texts. To find out more about a hymn text and its origins and use, try the Dictionary of American Hymnology
