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Music Librarian
This guide covers search tools for research in topics related to music and music education.
Start with:
- Oxford Music OnlineOxford Music Online is an online resource that includes the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and several other music reference resources. In Oxford Music Online, you’ll find concise overviews of the life and works of musicians and composers, information on music genres, and more. This is a great place to start exploring your topic and learning about the context; better yet, it’s a scholarly source including entries written and reviewed by experts, so you know it’s trustworthy. TIP: Many Oxford Music Online entries include bibliographies, and these are lists of works that could also be helpful sources for your research!
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full TextRILM is a great place to search for journal articles, but it also includes dissertations, conference proceedings, books, and more. Many resources that appear in RILM are available as full-text PDFs. To download PDFs when available, click the “M-Find It” icon on the top right side of the screen to navigate your way to the downloadable version of the article. There may be some materials in RILM that are not available as full text; if you can’t access something you need, email Jessica Abbazio, UMN’s Music Librarian at jabbazio@umn.edu for help.
- JSTORThis database contains full-text PDFs for articles from hundreds of journals in a wide variety of disciplines. You can download the PDF directly from the database, but take note: JSTOR only includes a fraction of the music-related literature that’s out there and it does not have the most recent articles, so while JSTOR is a good place to start your research, it shouldn't be where your research ends.
Then try any of the following:
- Garland Encyclopedia of World MusicFind background information and search the full text of the 10-volume print encyclopedia with links to audio examples, musical illustrations, photographs, and drawings; song texts and score examples; and charts and maps of world regions. In the Garland Encyclopedia, you’ll find concise overviews of the life and works of musicians and composers, information on music genres, and more. This is a great place to start exploring your topic and learning about the context; better yet, it’s a peer-reviewed, scholarly source including entries written and reviewed by experts, so you know it’s trustworthy. TIP: Many Garland Encyclopedia entries include lists of references, and these lists of works could also point you towards helpful sources for your research!
- Bloomsbury Popular MusicBloomsbury Popular Music provides an in-depth analysis of popular music in a global context. It includes the entirety of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World and the 33 1/3 series of books exploring key albums.
- Music Index OnlineFind articles from 1979 to the present about music history, forms and types of music, musical instruments from ancient to modern, acoustic, electronic, and computer-produced music. Book reviews, reviews of music recordings, tapes, and performances, first performances, and obituaries are also included.
- Music Periodicals DatabaseFind articles from 350 international music journals, plus the New York Times and the Washington Post. Covers all types of music from classical to modern includes concert and music reviews. Useful for music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition.
- International Bibliography of Theatre and DanceSearch dance and theater arts journals on topics such as performing arts, ballet, drama, opera, film, and more.
Looking for an introduction to a specific genre, style, or methodology? Check out these e-books!
- Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2021Nicholas Cook explores the nature of music, how we think about it, its social and cultural dimensions, and its history. He discusses the many musical traditions across the world and the interactions between them. He also considers performance, how composers create music, and the position of music in today's globalized society.
- Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2013Ethnomusicology, an academic discipline founded in 1950, has been defined as the study of the music of others. This definition, at once whimsical and very nearly true, is incomplete. Many of its strongest threads have emerged because a person or a people have wanted to understand themselves, their history, and their identity. In this work, Timothy Rice offers a compact and illuminating account of this growing discipline showing how modern researchers to about studying music from around the world, looking for insights into both music and humanity.
- World Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2020From folk music to worldbeat, world music holds the power to evoke the exotic and give voice to the voiceless. This new edition shows how dramatic political changes are affecting the ways in which people produce and listen to world music, and addresses how new technologies and the internet alter the way we disseminate and listen to it.
- Country Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2020This volume presents a compelling overview of the music and its impact on American culture through its key artists and styles from the minstrel era to today. Truly the 'voice of the people,' country music illuminates our cultural story, from our nation's birth to today.
- Early Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2011In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly frames chapters on the forms techniques, and repertories of the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods with discussion of why old music has been and should be revived, along with a short history of early music revivals.
- Film Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2010Film Music: A Very Short Introduction focuses on the most central issues in the practice of film music. What is film music? How is it composed? How does film music work? The rich and deeply moving sounds of film music are as old as cinema. The very first projected moving images were accompanied by music in many places as a variety of performers — from single piano players to small orchestras — brought images to life. Film music has since become its own industry, an aesthetic platform for expressing creative visions, and a commercial vehicle for growing musical stars of all varieties.
- Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction byCall Number: e-bookPublication Date: 2011Throwing open the doors on a remarkably diverse musical genre that has a world-wide reach that goes far beyond America's shores, this book discusses folk music of every possible kind and in every corner of the globe.
Also check out:
- Met Opera on DemandListen and watch more than 450 Met Opera performances.
- Medici.tvMedici.tv offers high-definition webcasts and streaming videos from leading music festival. It also offers a video archive of performances by great musicians of the past. Documentaries on performers and composers, educational programs, and master classes are also included.
- Naxos Music LibraryOnline collection of recorded music in streaming audio -- primarily classical music, plus smaller collections of world music and jazz.
Note: Users who create/use a personal Playlist account are required to log-in to the Library's Naxos website at least once every 6 months, to guarantee the re-authentication of their account. Accessing NML through the NML app is not considered re-authentication. - Classical Music LibraryClassical Music Library is an extensive collection of recordings with a supplementary reference database that users may search and listen to music delivered to their desktop. Classical Music Library is cross-referenced to a database of supplementary information and features fully licensed recordings, thousands of program notes and composer biographies, advanced searching, and hundreds of recommended playlists themed by genres.
- Music Online: Jazz Music LibraryJazz Music Library streams over a half-million audio tracks from about 45,000 albums issued by such major labels as Verve, Impulse, Jazzology, Black Swan, Circle Records, Paramount, Concord, Fantasy, Milestone, Monterey Jazz Festival Records, Original Jazz Classics, Pablo, Peak, Prestige, Riverside, Stretch Records, and Original Jazz Classics. The list of artists ranges from Buddy Guy, Charlie Parker, Chuck Mangione, Dinah Washington, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Grover Washington, Jr., Les Paul, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, and Peggy Lee, to Quincy Jones, Ramsey Lewis, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holliday, Thelonius Monk, Tony Bennett, and many others.
- Music Online: Classical Scores LibraryMusic Online: Classical Scores Library is a series of four volumes with a mission to provide a reliable and authoritative source for scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of lesser-known contemporary works. The collections encompass all major classical musical genres and time periods from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. With full, study, piano, and vocal scores, this comprehensive collection will enhance the study of music history, performance, composition and theory for a variety of scholars.
- Music Library
The UMN Music Library's collections support the full range of degree programs and courses offered by the School of Music, and the diverse research and performance interests of its students and faculty. The main collection includes scores, audio and video recordings, books, periodicals, and microforms covering all areas of Western art music, as well as selected coverage of non-Western and vernacular forms of music, including folk, jazz, and rock. The collection is strong in the areas of opera, history of music theory, and 19th- and early 20th-century German periodical literature. We have approximately 150,000 scores and books, 400 periodical titles (current subscriptions list), and over 50,000 CDs, LPs, Audiocassettes, Video cassettes, and DVDs.
Last Updated: Jan 22, 2025 12:30 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/music