Research Guides: Music: Resources

Databases

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Contains records in over 100 languages; entries include original-language titles, title translations in English, full bibliographic information, and abstracts in English, as well as author, journal, and in-depth subject indexes. Approximately 30,000 new entries are added annually.
Dissertations and Theses Global
JSTOR
IPA Source
RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales)
The most comprehensive documentation available for music manuscripts and printed music for the time between 1600 and 1800. Continues to grow through monthly updates and averages around 30,000 new records annually.
WorldCat
Google Scholar

Additional and Interdisciplinary Databases

RIdIM (Association Répertoire International d'Iconographie Musicale)
From the website: "The RIdIM database is designed to facilitate discovery of music iconography images by registered researchers, and the description of such images by registered cataloguers. The database is web-based and platform independent, and access will be free of charge to scholars affiliated with academic institutions, galleries, museums, etc., as well as independent researchers."

IMSLP: International Music Score Project / Petrucci Music Library
IMSLP has created a music library to provide music scores free of charge to anyone with internet access, with several other projects in planning. IMSLP is also entirely collaborative, and all contributions are greatly welcome.
**PLEASE check the info tab to see important copyright info

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Make sure to check the copyright status of the work you are downloading since users are responsible for copyright violations. You can check the 3-character code associated with each score. The first code is for Canada, the second is for the US, and the third is for Europe. Make sure that the second character in the 3 character code is a V (e.g. V/V/28 or V/V/V) indicating that the piece of music is under public domain in the US and you do not violate US copyright by downloading it. If the code has a number in the second character like V/25/V that indicates that the music is still under copyright until 2025 and by downloading it you will violate US copyright.
Music Treasures Consortium (Library of Congress)
Manuscripts and sheet music.

OmniFile Full Text Select

The Full English
A digital archive of approximately 44,000 records and 58,400 digitized images, all available freely online, documenting folk music culture in England during the early 20th century.

Recordings

Classical Music in Video
Streaming video of classical music performances and masterclasses captured on video—approximately 1,500 performances in all. Contains performances of all forms of classical music, including major orchestral works by leading orchestras, plus chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with masterclasses and interviews with master teachers from around the world.
Opera in Video
Five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the world’s best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work’s importance to the operatic canon.

Scores

Reference

Oxford Companion to Music
eBook focusing on living composers and their music, and that adds some terms, works, and cross-references to the original printed text.
Oxford Dictionary of Music, 6th edition
Broad coverage of a wide range of musical categories spanning many eras, including composers, librettists, singers, orchestras, important ballets and operas, and musical instruments and their history.
Oxford Music Online
Full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), as well as all subsequent updates and emendations, for a total of 50,000 articles and 28,000 biographies. Also includes The Oxford Companion to Music (2002) and The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Second Edition, Revised (2006).
Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
Up-to-date information about theatre and performance from ancient Greece to the latest developments in London, Paris, New York, and around the globe. In addition to performances in playhouses, covers dance, opera, radio, film, television, and popular performance, including carnivals, circus, and public executions.
Oxford Music Online
Full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), as well as all subsequent updates and emendations, for a total of 50,000 articles and 28,000 biographies. Also includes The Oxford Companion to Music (2002) and The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Second Edition, Revised (2006).
Grove Music Online
Full texts of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd edition (2002), as well as numerous subsequent updates and emendations.
Oxford History of Western Music
Offers an unmatched account of the evolution of Western classical music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time, Richard Taruskin.

Finding Recordings Online

These are freely available collections that supplement to our paid library music databases.

Aria Database
Searchable database of Aria texts and recordings from 1288 Arias, 177 Operas, 65 Composers, 389 Translations.
Audio Archive at the Internet Archive
Collection of archived audio recordings: poetry, spoken word, music, news, podcasts, radio, and more. Downloadable and/or streaming.
Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection
From Syracuse University, searchable database of sound recordings from 22,000 wax cylinders from around the world, 12,000 of which are unique titles.
The Full English
A digital archive of approximately 44,000 records and 58,400 digitized images, all available freely online, documenting folk music culture in England during the early 20th century.
Irish Traditional Music Archive
These are the sound recordings available-- the archive also has interactive scores, video, and images.
James Koetting Ghana Field Recording Collection, Brown University
Field recordings from ethnomusicologist James Koetting's work in Ghana in the 1970's.
Judaic Collection, Recorded Sound Archives, Florida Atlantic University
Originally established in 2002 as a small project dedicated to the preservation of Jewish music, the RSA has matured into a robust digitization operation for all types of sound recordings. The RSA holds over 100,000 recordings of various types.
Library of Congress Performing Arts and Music Collections
Collections of recordings, films, sheet music, and photographs from the Library of Congress. Includes historical African American music recordings, folk music, Aaron Copeland, Emile Berliner, and Leonard Bernstein collections.
Lomax Digital Archive
From the Association for Cultural Equity Online Archive, 7,000+ streaming audio recordings organized into 30 collections of folk, blues, jazz, and more.
MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada
Songs of Cape Breton and Newfoundland from folklorist MacEdward Leach.
MDZ Digital Collections of Music
Digitized works of Beethoven, Handel, Wagner, and more from the Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Milman Parry Collection
Includes digital recordings from the south Slavic oral traditions recorded by Parry.
Music at the Digital Library Directory
List of digital collections from around the web-- not all sound recordings, many sheet music and images archives as well.
Music Treasures Consortium, Library of Congress
Manuscripts and sheet music.
National Jukebox: Historical Recordings from the Library of Congress
Includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925.
Sound and Vision, British Library
Guidance on how to access the extensive audio holdings of the British Library online.
The Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings
Digitized recordings of Mexican and Mexican American music, from over 130,000 individual recordings on cassettes and 78 rpm, 45 rpm, and 33 1/3 rpm long-playing (lp) records.
UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive
A digital collection of over 8,000 cylinder recordings from around the world, at the UC Santa Barbara Library.
Virtual Gramophone, Canadian Historical Sound Recordings
A listing of more than 15,000 78-rpm and cylinder recordings from Canadian artists from Library and Archives Canada.

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