Research Guide for Music

FIND JOURNAL/NEWSPAPER ARTICLES | FIND BOOKS | REFERENCE SOURCES | INTERNET RESOURCES

FIND JOURNAL/NEWSPAPER ARTICLES return to top

These databases will help you locate information published in journals, magazines, newspapers and a variety of other sources. Expanded Academic ASAP General Reference Center Gold RILM: Repertoire Internationale de la Litterature Musique JSTOR Wilson Select Plus

FIND BOOKS return to top

Albion College Library Online Catalog will help you find books, videos, government documents, journals, newspapers, and other materials owned by the Albion College Library. MeLCat Online Catalog will help you find books owned by dozens of libraries in Michigan (including Albion College, Michigan State University, Central Michigan University, Albion Public Library, East Lansing Public Library, Grand Rapids Community College, Southfield Public Library, and many others). Books may be borrowed by using the online request form. WorldCat provides access to the library records of books and any other types of material owned worldwide. In some cases these materials can be borrowed through interlibrary loan.

REFERENCE SOURCES return to top

IDENTIFYING & LOCATING SOURCES | DISCOGRAPHIES/OTHER RECORDING SOURCES BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MUSIC LITERATURE | SONG INDEXES | DICTIONARIES/ENCYCLOPEDIAS BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MUSIC/COLLECTION CATALOGS Identifying and Locating Sources Instrumental Music Printed Before 1600: A Bibliography is a bibliography of early printed music. ML128.I65 B77  Stockwell 308. Music Index is a very basic index to more than 690 international music periodicals, covering every aspect of the classical and popular world of music. A broad range of information is indexed, including musicological topics, book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries. 1949-1982 Storage, 1981-1985 Microfilm. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols. is an exhaustive resource of information on people, places, instruments, techniques, genres, and styles. The most important English language encyclopedia on music. It is also referred to as the Sadie, after editor Stanley Sadie, or the Groves. ML100.N48  Reference.  The New Harvard Dictionary of Musicc. is the latest edition of thus most widely-used one-volume English language dictionary of music. It has exhaustive coverage of the western classical tradition and basic coverage of world music, but little coverage of popular idioms. There are no biographies of musicians and composers. ML100.A64 2003  Reference. Bibliographies of Music Literature Music Analyses: An Annotated Guide to the Literature provides the researcher with a one volume source for identifying analyses of specific works from all historical periods. ML128.A7 D5 1991 Stockwell 308. Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography, 4th ed. is the standard bibliography of reference resources in music. Citations are classified by type of reference tool; i.e., dictionaries and encyclopedias, histories and chronologies, etc.  It includes a comprehensive index, and is also referred to as the Duckles, after editor Vincent Duckles. ML113.D83 1988  Reference.  Thematic Catalogues in Music: An Annotated Bibliography, 2nd ed. is a comprehensive guide to thematic catalogues, many of which are not included in Duckles. ML113.B86 1997 Stockwell 308.  Sourcebook for Research in Music includes only the basic music reference sources, but also covers general non-reference literature. It provides useful glossaries of music bibliographical terminology in English, French, and German. ML113.C68 1999 Stockwell 308.  Dictionaries & Encyclopedias The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada is a splendid one-volume encyclopedic dictionary of all aspects of music in Canada. It includes articles on repertories, musical figures, and cultural groups. ML106.C36 E52  Reference.  The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians is an older resource, but still very useful for identifying musicians and composers of earlier ages who may have dropped out of the repertory. ML100 .T47 1964  Stockwell 308.  International Dictionary of Black Composers, 2 vols. contains biographical data, bibliographies, discographies, and critical essays, providing information on composers of African heritage from around the world--included are classical composers and some ragtime, jazz, concert, theatre, and gospel composers. ML105 .I5 1999  Reference. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 2nd ed.  6 vols. includes biographies of composers, lyricists, and performers, as well as background information on performing groups and hit songs. ML102.P66 G84 1995  Stockwell 308. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music contains short biographical sketches of composers and musicians, covering primarily figures in the western classical tradition, but including some popular and jazz figures as well. ML105 .H38 1996  Reference.  Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopedie der Musik, 15 vols. is the standard German language music encyclopedia and a reference work of the highest scholarly quality.  Available only in German but still useful even for those with a rudimentary command of the language. Also referred to as the Blume, after editor, Friedrich Blume. ML100.M92  Stockwell 308. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, 4 vols. is an offshoot of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. It includes bibliographies. ML101.U6 N48 1986  Reference.  The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2 vols. Offshoot of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. It includes discographies and bibliographies. ML102.J3 N48 1988  Reference.   Discographies & Other Sources for Recordings Check-list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of American Folk Song to July, 1940, 3 vols. is the result of the "collaborative handiwork" of the Library of Congress and the Work Projects Administration. Alphabetical list with geographical index. The World's Encyclopedia of Recorded Musicccc is an historical discographical survey of all classical sound recordings through the 1950s. Referred to as WERM by afficionados. Arranged alphabetically by composer. ML156.2 .C6  Stockwell 308. Song Indexes Popular Song Index indexes published anthologies of traditional popular and folk songs by title, first line, first line of chorus, and composer. ML128.S3 H4 Reference. Bibliographies of Music & Collection Catalogues The Book of World-Famous Music : Classical, Popular, and Folk, 5th ed. is one of the finest bibliographies of music ever created despite its commonplace title. Traces the publication history of well-known works. ML113 .F8 2000  Stockwell 308. A Handbook of Music and Music Literature in Sets and Series is a bibliography of and index to continuations in the field of music.  Includes both printed music and literature about music. ML113 .C45  Stockwell 308. Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music; A Guide to their Contents provides information to help you locate individual works in historical sets, collected works of composers, and national monuments. The composer work lists in the Grove are also good for identifying pieces in collected editions. ML128.S3 H4 Reference.

INTERNET RESOURCES return to top

Discographies & OTHER RECORDING SOURCES | Electronic Journals | Reference Works Bibliographies of music & collection catalogs | COLLEGE RESOURCES | Other Resources Discographies & Other Sources for Recordings BMI: Broadcast Media, Inc. includes a large popular song database, searchable by composer, title or publisher. Louis Armstrong Discography contains numerous published and out-of-print sources, along with liner notes of Armstrong's recordings, to create a comprehensive list of recordings. Reference Works All Music Guide provides access to extensive and interconnected databases of data on hundreds of thousands of albums and more than a million performance artists, composers, songwriters, and other key individuals. The site provides reviews, biographies, descriptive content on music styles and genres, relational data on similar artists and albums, co-performers, and information on the roots and influences of different artists and styles. American Music Resource provides references to information on all types of music indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. The AMR also contains tips for beginning researchers of American music, with emphasis on print and primary resources. Aria Database contains information on over 1000 operatic arias. CANTUS: A Database for Latin & Ecclesiastical Chant is presented by the music faculty of the University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada and provides access to indices of chants from specific manuscripts and early printed sources of the liturgical Office. Classical Composers Database is a good starting point for research into individual composers. DDM: Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology On-Line is a database of bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, as well as in related musical, scientific, and humanistic disciplines. Digital Scores Collection comes from Harvard University's Loeb Music Library and is an expansive resource of scanned images of rare and unique musical scores. The resource currently contains works by the Bach family, Mozart, and Verdi. Early American Secular Music and its European Sources, 1589-1839: An Index contains data describing more than 75,000 pieces of music found in some 1,200 sources, compiled from primary sources from the first 250 years of initial exploration and settlement of the United States. Festival Finder provides the latest details on more than 2,500 music festivals in North America. Click to your favorite genre, or use the search feature to locate festivals by date, location, performers or festival name. FestivalFinder changes every day. Gaylord Music Library Necrology File contains an index of death notices as they arrive in the Gaylord Music Library, updated nearly daily. Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920  is a project by Duke University's Digital Scriptorium and a subsite to the Library of Congress' American Memory project. HASM presents images of 3,042 pieces from Duke's extensive holdings, which cover a variety of song styles including bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, Tin Pan Alley songs, and songs from WWI. RISM: Repertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales RISM is a monumental undertaking to document the existence and location of printed and manuscript music between 1600-1800. Request specific titles through interlibrary loan, using the Schatz numbers in the RISM citation. Schenker Guide is produced by the music department at the Liverpool Hope University, England. It is geared towards students new to Schenkerian analysis, clarifying the basic principles behind Schenker's controversial and influential theory of tonal music. The site provides background information, an explanation of Schenkerian analysis, Schenker's theories concerning harmony and counterpoint, and the steps to doing Schenkerian analysis. Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum is an evolving database of the entire corpus of Latin music theory written during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Electronic Journals Ethnomusicology Online provides peer-reviewed scholarly and general articles in ethnomusicology and related disciplines. Journal of Seventeenth Century Music  is published by the Society for Seventeenth Century Music to provide a refereed forum for scholarly studies of the musical cultures of the seventeenth century. These include historical and archival studies, performance practice, music theory, aesthetics, dance and theater. The JSCM also publishes critical reviews and summary listings of recently published books, scores, recordings, and electronic media. Music and Anthropology: Journal of Musical Anthropology of the Mediterranean seeks to explore an interdisciplinary approach to the human and social dimensions of music through a discussion of its relationships to psychology, folklore, feminism, gender studies, etc. Music Theory Online: A Journal of Criticism, Commentary, Research, and Scholarship issues typically contain articles of interest to the music theory community, commentaries on articles from previous issues, reviews, notices of job vacancies in the field of music theory, notices of new dissertations (both completed and in progress), and announcements of conferences and calls for papers. Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts  is an important trade publication providing basic information on the business of music. Includes names and addresses of artists, symphony orchestras, opera, theater, and ballet companies, etc. International coverage. Bibliographies of Music & Collection Catalogues The Beethoven Bibliography Database is a fully indexed bibliography of published and selected unpublished materials related to Beethoven. Its purpose is to provide a one-stop shopping resource for all significant Beethoven materials, from the eighteenth century to the present. The type of information in the database includes books; articles from scholarly music and non-music journals; dissertations and theses; reviews of books, scores, recordings, and concerts; essays; newspaper, and encyclopedia articles. Twenty-two different journals and 75% of Beethoven's scores are included in the database. Gregorian Chant Home Page is supported by Princeton University and hopes to further scholarly research in Gregorian Chant. The page supplies links to other chant research sites, as well as those on medieval music theory, chant performance, and related topics such as ecclesiastical sciences, historical and humanistic sciences, and information sciences. Librarians' Index to the Internet  The mission of LII is to provide a one-stop shopping approach to reliable, trustworthy, librarian-evaluated content that is available on the World Wide Web. Click on "More subtopics" underneath "Arts and Humanities" for the link to music resources. Topics included in the bibliography include acoustics, composers, copyright, history, lyrics, instruments, musicians, record labels, scores, songs, symphony orchestras, and theory, and much more. Sojourn: The Canons & Fugues of J.S. Bach focuses on music theory, in particular the theory behind Bach's canons, fugues, and other well-known compositions, such as his inventions and Goldberg Variations. The site also links to documents on Bach's life and times, essays related to his transcriptions and influences, midi files, frequently asked questions, additional bibliographies, and informational databases. Albion College Resources Albion College Library: CD Collection  These CDs can also be located by searching the library's online catalog. Albion College Music Department Albion College Student Ensembles Research Guide for Music & the American Culture   Other Resources American Musicological Society (AMS) was founded in 1934 as a non-profit organization to advance research in the field of music. Presently the Society includes 3,600 individual members and 1,200 institutional members from over forty nations. The site provides information on membership, schools with graduate programs in musicology, allows you to search Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online (DDM) as well as submit information on your own dissertation, links you to E-mail discussion lists of interest, news events, copies of past newsletters, legal advice for work in the field, etc. Big Ears is the world's first online ear training software. The focus of Big Ears is as an interval driller. It plays a random interval, each time starting with a different starting pitch, and allows you to guess what interval was played. The software can be set so that it only plays descending, ascending intervals, or both. CNET Music Center  This site has a software/equipment bent to it that includes reviews of audio players and sites for audio download; information on MP3 players, sound cards and speakers; how to record, distribute, stream, and encode music.  Intended for general and recreational use rather than research for newcomers to online music. Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music  Part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins University. It contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. All pieces of the collection are indexed on this site and a search will retrieve a catalog description of the pieces. An image of the cover and each page of music will also be retrieved if the music was published before 1923 and is in the public domain. Performing Arts Encyclopedia Integrates the collections, commissions and live concerts of the Library of Congress, allowing users to search the Library's music and performing arts collections through a single gateway.  The site brings together thousands of digitized materials from the Library's vast collections of sheet music, sound recordings, moving images, manuscripts, photographs, etc. Forthcoming additions will include Civil War sheet music, African-American popular music from the early twentieth century, and K-12 content.