Electronic Resources for Music Research

Music Databases
Electronic Music Journals available through the Library Catalog
Web Resources
All Databases available at Applachian State University

Databases:

Available only to Appalachian State University students, faculty and staff. Available off campus with authentication (use your name and SSN)

African American Music Reference: "African American Music Reference will bring together 50,000 pages of text reference, biographies, chronologies, sheet music, images, lyrics, liner notes, and discographies which chronicle the diverse history and culture of the African American experience through music. The database is constantly expanding to include comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression." Note that this database is incomplete, but is being added to continuously . . .

The Aria Database: ". . . a diverse collection of information on over 1000 operatic arias. Designed for singers and non-singers alike, the Database includes translations and aria texts of most arias as well as a collection of MIDI files of operatic arias and ensembles."

CAIRSS for Music Database: A database with focus on music education, music therapy, and the psychology and physiology of music. Printing Tips for CAIRSS

Classical Music Reference Library: "Classical Music Reference Library brings together more than 30,000 pages of essential reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music, in a unified online database. Included are the authoritative reference titles Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music, which are available for the first time in electronic form. This release includes 26,742 essays and images from 22 sources, over 26,742 pages."

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music: "Containing 27,000 entries and over 6,000 new entries, the online edition of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music includes 50% more material than the Third Edition. Featuring a broad musical scope covering 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 Encyclopedia also offers thousands of additional entries covering popular music genres, trends, styles, record labels, venues, and music festivals. Key dates, biographies, and further reading are provided for artists covered, along with complete discographies that include record labels, release dates, and a 5-star album rating system."

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online: "The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online is the first comprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples. More than 9,000 pages of material, combined with entries by more than 700 expert contributors from all over the world, make this the most complete body of work focused on world music. . . . The first release includes the entire set of 10 print volumes available (over 9,200 pages). Future releases will contain more indexing as well as links to the associated audio examples for each volume."

Index to Printed Music: Collections & Series: The only electronic database for finding individual pieces of music in scholarly editions, as well as performing editions in series. Currently contains over 300,000 records.

International Index to Music Periodicals: Citations of journal articles as far back as 1874.

The Lied and Art Songs Text Page: ". . . an archive of 26,348 texts used in Lieder and other classical Art Songs as well as in many choral works and other types of classical vocal pieces. The collection currently includes 38,801 settings and 6,315 translations to English, Italian, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and other languages."

Music in Print Online An online database of printed music, categorized by genre. This database contains the latest information about the availability of printed music. Very useful!

Music Index Online: With RILM Abstracts and the International Index to Music Periodicals , one of the three main databases for articles on music. MI Online begins in 1979 and includes over 700 journal titles. There are also links, when available, to full-text journal articles, so you can not only find the citation, but the article itself.

Musica, The Virtual Choral Library: "The site contains a virtual library of 150,000 pieces of choral music, with comprehensive descriptions and multimedia links, and information on 27,000 composers." Note that a free individual registration by the user is required.

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: (2nd edition) The most authoritative encyclopedia for music in the English language; also available in paper format in the Music Library Ref. ML100 .N48 2000 vols. 1-29.

PsycINFO Especially useful for topics involving Music Therapy; includes full indexing of the Journal of Music Therapy.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature: Citations and abstracts of scholarly books, journal articles, dissertations, essays in collections.

RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals 1800-1950: "RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals is an international annotated bibliography of writings on musical history and culture, found in music periodicals published in seventeen countries between approximately 1800 and 1950. Treating primary source material, RIPM indexes the content of complete runs of journals, including articles, reviews, news columns, miscellaneous items, surveys of the press, bibliographies, iconography and advertising."

RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources: The International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM) documents the world's musical sources of manuscripts or printed music, works on music theory and libretti stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections. It currently contains nearly 600,000 records from over 20,000 composers.

UT Song Index "This database provides access to about 50,000 songs in more than 1,500 published song anthologies owned by the George F. DeVine Music Library at the University of Tennessee, located in Knoxville. Use this citation index to determine which anthologies contain the song(s) you need. You will not find the music or the words here, just the call number and book title."

WorldCat: Citations of books, printed music, recordings, videos; ILL of books & printed music

World Wide Web Resources:

ACE Title Search. ASCAP: Useful for copyright information. "The Database contains information on all compositions in the ASCAP repertory which have appeared in any of ASCAP's domestic surveys, including foreign compositions licensed by ASCAP in the United States."

Baroque Guitar: A Web page dealing with sources of guitar music from the 17th century; written by Dr. Gary R. Boye, Music Librarian at Appalachian State University.

BMI.com Repertoire: More copyright information; for songs licensed under Broadcast Music Incorporated.

Guide to Copyright: From the Music Library Association.Details on general copyright provisions, performance rights, issues for composers and authors, and other legal topics.

Historic American Sheet Music: Access to digital images of more than 3,000 pieces of sheet music published in the United States between 1850 and 1920; from Duke University.

Hymn Tune Index: By Nicholas Temperley, the HTI database "contains all hymn tunes printed anywhere in the world with English-language texts up to 1820, and their publication history up to that date."

Music Library and Music-Related Web Pages in the Southeast: Another Web page authored by Dr. Boye, with links to music library Web pages throughout the Southeast.

Necrology (Death Dates of Musicians): From the Gaylord Music Library at Washington University in St. Louis. An updated list of musicians who have died recently.

Sixteenth-Century Printed Tablatures for the Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: This is a local Web page written by Dr. Gary R. Boye, Music Librarian at Appalachian State University.

Using Uniform Titles: Explore the types of titles used in cataloging music; a must for finding music efficiently in our online catalog; from Indiana University.

*Worldwide Internet Music Resources* Another great source for Web links; from Indiana University