Music
Getting Started
If you are not sure what your topic is about, try one or more of the following:
Books can be found by browsing the Catalogue, or the shelves at the following call numbers:
M Music (scores)
ML Literature on music
ML159 - 197 History of music
ML 460 - 1354 Instruments and instrumental music
MT Musical instruction and study
Journal Articles
For recent information, journal articles are often the best sources. Looking through individual journals in the hope of finding relevant material is time-consuming. It is better to use the databases to find articles on your topic.
Key databases
Index of journal articles about classical and popular music from more that 690 international music periodicals. Includes musicological or organological topics, plus book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries
RILM abstracts of music literature
A bibliography of music literature which cover all aspects of music, including historical musicology, ethnomusicology, instruments and voice, dance, and music therapy. It also includes other fields as they relate to music, including librarianship, literature, dramatic arts, visual arts, anthropology, sociology, philosophy and physics.
RISM Series II/A is an annotated index and guide to music manuscripts produced after 1600. It brings together over 380,000 works by more than 18,000 composers into one database.
Classical music library is a classical music service that enables listening and learning at selected library and home computers. It includes recordings, program notes, composer biographies, and images cross-referenced to the recordings.
Collection of digital music. Comprised of the complete Naxos, Marco Polo and Da Capo catalogues, including classical music, historical and nostalgic recordings, jazz, world, folk and Chinese music. Includes notes on the works being played as well as biographical information on composers or artists.
Other databases
Arts & humanities citation index
A multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.
Provides full text articles from music journals. All volumes of each title are available except the last few years.
Search for coverage of a broad range of subjects including arts, business, children, education, general interest, health, humanities, international, law, military, multicultural, psychology, sciences, social sciences, and women's interests.
Browse all databases for Music
Multimedia
Academic Video
Online (Select Opera database)
Music
Online scores
Alexander Street Press' Classical Scores Library will contain 400,000 pages of classical scores from both in-copyright and public domain editions. The major composers output is represented, as well as many lesser known composers and works. Content includes in-copyright material from Boosey and Hawkes and selected material from the University Music Editions microfilm series.
University of Washington Digital Scores Project
Music Library Digital Scores Collection contains manuscript musical scores dating from the 17th through 19th centuries. The majority of the collection is comprised of 17th and 18th century operas, opera excerpts, and other vocal music.
UCLA Music Scores & Sheet Music Online
From the UCLA Library Collection. Includes jazz and popular scores as well as classical music scores and printed early editions and manuscripts.
Hosted by the National Library of Australia, Music Australia contains Australian scores prior to 1930.
Digital Scores & Libretti, Loeb Music Library, Harvard University
The scores and libretti in the Loeb Music Library Virtual Collection include early editions and manuscript copies of music from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It includes works by J.S. Bach and Bach family members, Mozart, Schubert and other composers, as well as multiple versions of nineteenth century opera scores, seminal works of musical modernism, and music of the Second Viennese School.
The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores based on the wiki principle.
Early Music Online has digitised 300 of the world's earliest surviving volumes of printed music, held in the British Library. This project has digitised about a half of the British Library's holdings of 16th-century anthologies of printed music, as listed in RISM B/I (Recueils imprimés XVI-XVII siécles). The volumes mainly consist of partbooks of vocal polyphony, but also include some early printed tablatures for keyboard or plucked string instruments.
Hosted by the UCLA Digital Library Program, this consortium of music libraries aims to build an online collection of digitised sheet music.
Specialised Resources
Web Sites
Australian Music : Classic/amp (ABC Classic FM)
Harvard Loeb Music Library - internet resources for music scholars
Worldwide Internet Music Resources - Indiana University School of Music
English Folk Dance & Song Society
Grainger Museum (includes digitsied Percy Grainger resources)
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