Announcing - Autocomplete search results

Search can be a tricky thing to get right. But when done well, a good search engine can make a website like Musopen, which has an enormous library, much more accessible and user-friendly. To that end, we are releasing a new search engine which should make finding what you are visiting for much faster.

The biggest change is that we have added autocomplete search results across the entire website (in the header). Previously when you entered a query, we would take you to a list of search results that would need to be refined further (for example, do you want music or sheet music). Now that we've combined sheet music and music pages, we've enabled the ability to show single results and potentially take you right to what you're searching for.

Here's how it works. Let's look at a couple (real) recent search queries on the site:

1. Dvorak Carnival Overture

Where the new search engine really shines is when you have a specific piece of music in mind. Now we highlight the parts of our suggested results to show you what we think you're looking for. You can combine composers, instruments, and the title of the work to quickly narrow results.

2. Mozart

Now we're able to guess that by entering a composer, you probably want to see all music by that composer, so we now have added a quick option to see "All music by composer." We've also thrown in popular queries at the top for good measure in the event that you want to see what is most downloaded.

3. Piano

We now also support autocomplete results for instruments.

If we don't suggest what you are looking for, clicking "View all results" (or enter on the keyboard) will take you to the full search engine, to more results and powerful filtering and search options to  hopefully get you what you are looking for.