Basic Reference Sources in Music: A Finding List

It is the strength ... of all good dictionaries, that [their] incidental seductions should prove more potent than the user's self-discipline." -- Wilfrid Mellers.

This list is intended to introduce useful reference tools in the field of music. The following suggestions may facilitate using the list:

1. In each category the most comprehensive and generally useful items are listed first.
2. Items are located in Music Library Reference, unless otherwise noted. (All locations are for Music Library.)
3. Be sure to check supplemental volumes of individual reference tools for updating of information.
4. For further information check in other reference books in the same class number on the shelf. Many are useful, but could not be included in this list.

This list covers primarily Western art music. Guides to finding information on jazz, opera, popular music, individual instruments, and vocal materials are also available.

If you do not find what you need, ASK a staff member for help, or ask the desk attendant for a REQUEST FOR INFORMATION form.

• SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON PEOPLE AND SUBJECTS
  • Encyclopedias.
    • New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ref ML 100 .G8863 1980
      The 5th ed. is still useful (ML 100 .G8863 1955)
    • Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. (MGG) Ref ML 100 .M92
      Note lists of works ("Werke") and modern editions ("Ausgaben")
  • General dictionaries of music.
    • International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (10th ed., 1975) Ref ML 100 .T47
    • Riemann Musik-Lexikon. (12th ed. + suppl., 1959- 1975) Also lists modern eds. ("Ausg.") Ref ML 100 .R52
    • Scholes. Oxford Companion to Music. (10th ed., 1983) Note section of pronunciations. Ref ML 100 .S37
  • Dictionaries of terms and subjects.
    • New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Ref ML 100 .R3 1986
      The 2nd ed. of this work is still useful, especially for bibliographies (ML 100 .A64 1969)
    • Terminorum musicae index septem linguis redactis. Ref ML 108 .T4
      An index of musical terms in seven languages.
  • Biographical dictionaries.
    Note: The indexes to biographical dictionaries by Greene and by Bull, items 34 and 35 below, are practical first sources in deciding which biographical tools to use. In addition, directories are sometimes sources for addresses.
    • Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. (8th ed., 1992) Ref ML 105 .B16
    • Cohen. International Encyclopedia of Women Composers. Ref ML 105 .C7 1987
    • The biographical dictionaries in ML 105 and the collective biographical sources in ML 390-ML 406 may have information you need.
  • Dictionaries of special topics.
    1. American music.
       • New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Ref ML 101 .U6 N48 1986
    2. Band music.
       • Rehrig. The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. Ref ML 102 .B35 R4 1991
    3. Black music.
       • Southern. Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and Black Musicians. Ref ML 105 .S67
    4. Chamber music.
       • Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music. (2nd ed., 1963) Ref ML 1100 .C7
    5. Contemporary music.
       • Vinton. Dictionary of Contemporary Music. Ref ML 100 .V55
    6. Instruments.
       • New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Ref ML 102 .I5 N48 1984
       • Marcuse. Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary. Ref ML 102 .I5 M37
    7. Opera and musical theater.
       • New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ref ML 102 .O6 N5 1992
       • Moore. Crowell's Handbook of World Opera. Ref ML 102 .O6 M6
       • Ganzl. The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. Ref ML 102 .M88 G3 1994
    8. Publishing.
       • Krummel and Sadie. Music Printing and Publishing. Ref ML 112 .M876 1990
  • Translations of titles.
    • Hodgson. Music Titles in Translation. Ref ML 111 .H7
    • Berkowitz. Popular Titles and Subtitles of Musical Compositions. Ref ML 113 .B39

DIRECTORIES

• Directory of Music Faculties in Colleges and Universities, U.S. and Canada. Ref ML 13 .D57
• Music Industry Directory. (7th ed., 1983) Ref ML 13 .M505
  Can be supplemented by Pavlakis, The American Music Handbook. Ref ML 13 .P39
• Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts Annual. Ref ML 12 .M88
• Billboard International Buyer's Guide. Ref ML 18 .B5
  An annual directory of the sound and video recording industry.
• Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries. Ref ML 18 .P9
  Annual; Instruments and equipment.
• Directory of Music Research Libraries: Vol.1: Canada and the U.S. Ref ML 113 .I6 v.C1
• International Who's Who in Music and Musicians' Directory. Stacks ML 106 .G7 W4
• Note: Annual buyers' guides and indexes to advertisers often appear as regular features in professional journals.

INDEXES AND ABSTRACTS

• A. Comprehensive.
  • RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (1967- ) Index table Abstracts the scholarly literature of music--journals, books, book reviews, dissertations, conference proceedings, etc.
• B. Journal articles.
  • International Index to Music Periodicals
  • Music Index (1949- ) Index table
    Indexes ca. 300 periodicals, international in scope.
  • Music Article Guide (1966- ) Index table
    Quarterly index, without cumulations, of ca. 160 American music periodicals "geared to school and college music educators."
• C. Biography.
  • Greene. Composers on Record: An Index to Biographical Information on 14,000 Composers Whose Music Has Been Recorded. Ref ML 105 .G78 1985
  • Bull. Index to Biographies of Contemporary Composers. (3 vols) Ref ML 105 .B9
• D. Melodies and themes.
  • Barlow and Morgenstern. Dictionary of Musical Themes. Ref ML 128 .I65 B3
  • Barlow and Morgenstern. Dictionary of Vocal Themes. Ref ML 128 .V7 B3
    Reissued as Dictionary of Opera and Song Themes.
• E. Printed music in collections.
  • Heyer. Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music: A Guide to Their Contents. (3d ed., 1980) Ref ML 113 .H52
  • Charles. Handbook of Music and Music Literature in Sets and Series. Ref ML 113 .C45
  • DeCharms and Breed. Songs in Collections: An Index. (1966) Ref ML 128 .S3 D37
  • Sears. Song Index. (c1926, 1934) Ref ML 128 .S3 S31
  • Havlice. Popular Song Index. (1975-1984) Ref ML 128 .S3 H4
  • Hilton. Index to Early Music in Selected Anthologies. (1978) Ref ML 116 .H54
• F. Recordings in collections.
  • Stahl. Selected Discography of Solo Song + suppls. Ref ML 156.4 .V7 S8
    Covers collections issued from middle 1960s to 1982.
  • Croucher. Early Music Discography: From Plainsong to the Sons of Bach. (2 v., 1981) Ref ML 156.2 .C76
  • Coover and Colvig. Medieval and Renaissance Music on Long Playing Records. + suppl. Ref ML 156.2 .C67
  • Note: Individual items in recorded collections may also be found by consulting cumulations of Index to Record Reviews , listed in the following section.
• G. Reviews, criticism, analyses.
  1. Recordings.
     • "Index to Record Reviews," appearing in each issue of Notes: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association (1948- )
  2. Published music.
     • Diamond. Music Analyses: An Annotated Guide to the Liberature. Ref ML 128 .A7 D5 1991
     • Diamond. Music Criticism: An Annotated Guide to the Literature. Ref ML 128.A7 D51
     • Wenk. Analyses of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Music. Ref ML 128 .A7 W45 1987
  3. Books about music.
     • Look in Music Index under the heading "Book Reviews." Also, be sure to consult general book review indexes for reviews of music books.
  4. Performances.
     • Look in Music Index under the performing artist or organization, or under a featured composer.
  
  
• GUIDES AND HANDBOOKS TO MUSIC AND MUSIC LITERATURE
  These are excellent sources of more detailed descriptions of items on this list and of other reference tools. It may be useful to study the introductions, tables of contents, and indexes of these items.
  • Crabtree and Foster. Sourcebook for Research in Music. Ref ML113 .C68 1993
  • Brockman. Music: A Guide to the Reference Literature. Ref ML 113 .B85 1987
  • Duckles. Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography. (4th ed.) Ref ML 113 .D83 1988
  • Harris. Music Education: A Guide to Information Sources. (1978) Ref ML 19 .H37
    Covers all aspects of music, with distinctive coverage of the practical needs of educators.
  • Marco. Information on Music: A Handbook of Reference Sources in European Languages. (3 v., 1975-1984) Ref ML 113 .M33
  • Davies. Musicalia: Sources of Information in Music. (2nd ed., 1969) Ref ML 113 .D383 M9
  • Music Library Association. Notes. (2nd ser., 1943- ) Music Library Periodicals
    Source of current information on a variety of reference tools.
  
  
• LISTS OF MATERIAL (BIBLIOGRAPHIES)
  Note also the previous section.
  • A. Comprehensive.
    • U.S. Library of Congress. Library of Congress: Music and Phonorecords (1953- ) Index table
      This work changed title to Music, Books on Music, and Sound Recordings , and included cataloging from LC and nine other major music libraries. From 1981 on, it has been issued in microfiche under the title The Music Catalog , and consists of a "Register" and an "Index." We will have this tool for searching materials cataloged since 1981 in CD-ROM format in the near future.
  • B. Printed music.
    • Lists of music (bibliographies) can be found in the following class numbers:
      

      ML 113	General
      ML 114-118	Special periods
      ML 120	By country
      ML 128	By topic or instrument

    • Perform a subject search on your topic in WNCLN's Library Catalog , using an authorized subject heading plus the term "Bibliography" to find bibliographies.
    • Published library catalogs (ML 136-ML 139) also cover a wide range of published material.
    • Music Library Association Catalog of Cards for Printed Music 1953-1972: A Supplement to the Library of Congress. Ref ML 113 .O44 A32
  • C. Catalogues of composers' works.
  • Thematic and bibliographic catalogues of composers' works are classed in ML 134, for browsing. Performing a SUBJECT search in WNCLN's Library Catalog , using a composer's name and the subdivision terms "Thematic catalogs" or "Bibliography," will indicate whether the library owns such a tool. To see all thematic catalogues owned by the library, enter a SUBJECT search for "Thematic catalogs."
  • Checking in Brook, Thematic Catalogues in Music: An Annotated Bibliography. (Ref ML 113 .B86) is the first step to finding whether a catalogue exists for a specific composer.
    
    
• GUIDES TO RESEARCH AND WRITING ABOUT MUSIC
  • Watanabe. Introduction to Music Research. (1967) Stacks ML 3797 .W37
  • Druesedow. Library Research Guide to Music: Illustrated Search Strategy and Sources. Ref ML 111 .D78 1982
  • Wingell. Writing about Music: An Introductory Guide. Stacks ML 3797 .W54 1990
  • Irvine. Writing about Music: A Style Book for Reports and Theses. Ref ML 3797 .I79 1968
  • Helm and Luper. Words & Music: Form and Procedure in Theses, Dissertations, Research Papers, Book Reports, Programs, Theses in Composition. Ref ML 3797 .H49 1982
  • Phelps, Ferrara, and Goolsby. Guide to Research in Music Education. (4th ed.) Stacks MT 1 .P5 1993
  • Rainbow and Froehlich. Research in Music Education: An Introduction to Systematic Inquiry. Stacks MT 1 .R26 1987
  • Rust. Guide to Discography. (1980) Stacks ML 111.5 .R87
    
    
• INTERNET RESOURCES
  • Indiana University School of Music Library Homepage

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Last update of this page April 6, 2007 10:48 am