Reference

Dictionaries, Directories, Handbooks, Encyclopedias, etc. - Reference works are useful when you need to obtain quick facts, define the terms and scope of your search, or get a broad overview of a topic. Best Bets! are marked with aBest Bet!.
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Oxford Music Online (includes Grove Music Online)

  • the leading online resource for music research
  • scholarly encyclopedia articles covering  classical, opera, jazz, popular music, etc.
  • composers, performers, conductors, individual works, instruments and notation, forms and genres
  • contents:
    • Grove Music Online: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, including updates
    • Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed., Colin Larkin, ed.: popular music of all genres and periods from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music
    • The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev., Michael Kennedy, ed.: 12,500 entries covering musical subjects of all kinds
    • The Oxford Companion to Music, Alison Latham, ed.: a concentrated focus on the Western classic tradition, from the Middle Ages to the present day

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music / Bruno Nettl, et al., eds.

  • a comprehensive survey of world music organized in ten volumes by continent
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 100 .G16 (10 volumes)

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians / Stanley Sadie, ed.

  • print version in Mills Music Reference (4th floor) ML 100 .N48 (29 volumes)

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada / Helmut Kallmann, et al., eds.

  • 4000 articles on all aspects of music in Canada

Harvard Dictionary of Music  / Don Michael Randel, ed.

  • general source for terms, definitions, instruments, periods
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 100 .A64

Baker's Dictionary of Music / Nicolas Slonimsky; Richard Kassel, ed.

  • 1,171 pages of musical definitions and brief biographies
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 100 .S635

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians / Nicolas Slonimsky; Laura Kuhn, ed.

  • 6 volumes of useful and reliable compact biographies of musicians of all ages and nations
  • includes lists of composers' works and bibliographies
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 105 .B16

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World / John Shepherd, et al., eds.

  • a seven volume guide to world music industries organized by continent
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 102 .P66 C66 (7 volumes)

 New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments / Stanley Sadie, ed.

  • articles on Western and non-Western musical instruments, historical and modern, their makers, and performance practices
  • bibliographies of additional source materials on specific instruments
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ML 102 .I5 N48

 

Articles/Databases

Use article databases to find out which journals, magazines, and newspapers have published articles on your topic. Most useful when recent information is required, or when the topic is too specific to be covered in a book. Best Bets! are marked with aBest Bet!.
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JSTOR    does not include the most recent 3-5 years

  • full text access to scholarly articles from over 60 music journals published from the 1860s - 2000s
  • under "Limit by Discipline", select "Music"

Music Index Online    1979 to current

  • citations to scholarly and popular music articles, as well as numerous reviews for books and sound recordings
  • 1.5 million articles from 875 international music periodicals

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature -- 1967 to current

  • abstracts of scholarly articles on classical music, jazz, world music, etc.
  • MILLS Music Reference (4th floor) ZML 1 .R13

RIPM -- Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals    ca. 1800 - 1950

  • citations and abstracts covering 120 international historic music periodicals
  • includes articles, reviews, illustrations, music examples, advertisements, press reviews, and more
  • in addition, more than 5,000 English-language translations of articles from journals in other languages

Canadian Music Periodical Index  late 19th C. to current

  • citations from over 600 Canadian music journals, newsletters and magazines from the late 19th century to the present

ERIC 1966 to current

  • citations to 1.3 million resources in the field of education: journal articles, books, papers, reports, theses, curriculi, standards, guidelines, policy papers, etc.
  • about 950 journals are actively indexed in ERIC, 90+ percent peer-reviewed 

 

Websites

The Internet is home to useful web sites on many subjects. Unlike the resources on other tabs, the following resources are selected from the free web. Remember to critically evaluate web resources, since web site content is usually unmonitored and unregulated.
  • Classical Music Navigator Brief information on composers, notable works, and forms and styles of music.

  • ClassicalNet: A collection of information and news: articles, CD reviews, composers and their music, the basic repertoire, recommended compositions and recordings.

  • MusicaNet Choral MusicDatabase of the choral music repertoire of the world. +83,000 titles of choral music in Musica International. Musica International coordinates the work of choral music federations, music libraries and choral music publishers.

 

Scores

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Classical Scores Library 

  • currently contains 13,956 scores (292,823 pages) from both in-copyright and public domain editions of music scores
  • major composers, as well as many lesser known composers and works from the Renaissance to the 21st century
  • content in the database includes in-copyright material from Boosey and Hawkes and selected material from the University Music Editions microfilm series

Public domain:

 

Audio and Video

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Naxos Music Library   Note: 5 maximum concurrent users; please log out of session after use and turn off pop-up blockers)

  • online collection of recorded classical, jazz and world music delivered via streaming audio
  • also includes CD covers, track listings, liner notes, composer biographical information, opera synopses and libretti
  • over 37,000 discs and over 540,000 tracks as of November 2009

Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries   Note: 5 maximum concurrent users

  • online collection of recorded sound, including folk, popular, classical and world music, speeches, and oral histories, delivered via streaming audio
  • browse by musical instrument, geographic area, or topic, e.g. American folk traditions, blues, bluegrass and old-time country, American Indian traditions, world traditions (by continent), jazz, classical, spoken word, sound effects.