Earlham Libraries Home: All Music Guide: Reference, Scores, & Web Sites

Library Purchased Reference Sources

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of he New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition, 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd edition, 2002), and more.
Contains the full text 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).

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music by Bruno Nettl & Ruth M. Stone
ISBN: 9780815318651
Publication Date: 1999
10-volume series takes a cultural approach to its focus on the music of all the world's peoples. Each volume is arranged topically, regionally, or by ethnic group, and complemented by an extensive index. Although each volume will differ because of the nature of the material, the organization remains consistent throughout all: regional overviews first; music in the social context next; then finally, the musical traditions of individual countries or ethnic groups. Of exceptional value are the CDs that accompany each volume, often with previously unrecorded music, as well as the resource guides, extensive bibliographies, and photographs. Companion CDs available at Circulation Desk.
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World by John Shepherd
ISBN: 0826474365
Publication Date: 2005
Includes coverage of the historical, geographical, demographic, political, economic and cultural context. Arranged by geographic location.

Oxford Reference - Music
Includes 7 music dictionaries and encyclopedias, including companions for American musical, opera, and dance.

Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Brief biographical information about a number of well-known people.
Offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series, the thorough periodical coverage of Biography Index and the specialist biographical content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. It provides biographical full-text articles, page images and abstracts from today’s leading magazines and journals.
Biography Reference Source This link opens in a new window
Full text biographies on notable people.
This database offers a collection of full-text biographies and unique narrative biographies. Including coverage for several of the most popular and heavily-researched biographies and genres, including those contained within Biography Today and Biography (both dating back to the first issue published).
ABC-CLIO eBooks Reference Collection This link opens in a new window
Over 50 music encyclopedias including many on specific genres, such as country, folk, funk, hip-hop, punk, heavy metal, bluegrass, jazz, and musical theater. Click on "Popular Culture" and then "Music & Performing Arts" to browse. Includes The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History, Jazz: A Regional Exploration, and Encyclopedia of Punk Music and Culture.
Over 600 ebook versions of encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies and other reference tools. Includes many sources on Popular Culture, American & World History, and volumes from the "Daily Life" cultural history encyclopedias.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
The academic alternative to Wikipedia! Pulls articles from a wide range of encyclopedias and dictionaries written by subject experts.
The academic alternative to Wikipedia! Provides access to nearly 500 encyclopedias and dictionaries. Search by concept map. Includes thousands of searchable images.
Pop Culture Universe This link opens in a new window
Overview essays on American popular culture by decade, 1900s through 2000s.
Overview essays on American popular culture by decade from 1900s through 2000s. For each decade includes sections on Architecture and Housing; Books and Literature; Business, Advertising, and Consumer Culture; Clothing, Fashion, and Appearance; Film; Food and Drink; Music; Performing Arts and Theater; Recreation and Leisure; Sports; Technology and Media; Television and Radio; Transportation and Travel; and Visual Arts. Includes media.

Transcriptions and Translations

Public Score Resources

IMSLP - International Music Score Library Project
Started in 2006, the ultimate goal of the IMSLP is to gather all public domain music scores, in addition to the music scores of all contemporary composers (or their estates) who wish to release them to the public free of charge.

Web Resources

AllMusic
Biographies, discographies, reviews, and essays on [mostly] popular music.
Black Grooves
Searchable, critical reviews of recordings of a wide range of music from Indiana University's Archive of African American Music and Culture.
Global Music Archive
Multimedia archive of sound recordings and images related to indigenous music from Africa and the Americas maintained by Wilson Music Library at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music.
Music, Theater, & Dance ("Library of Congress Presents")
The Library of Congress's amazing array of articles, biographies, images, scores, and sound files on American music.
Neue Mozart Ausgabe
Scores and analysis (only in German) from the critical edition of Mozart's works from Barenheiter Verlag.
New York Philharmonic Digital Archives
Includes programs, scores, images, and business documents from the New York Philharmonic's historic archives.
Sheet Music Consortium
Search across multiple digitized sheet music collections including materials from Indiana University, Duke, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, Library of Congress, and others.
The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive
An ever-expanding collection of texts used in 123,060 Lieder and other classical art songs. Includes translations into English, French, Italian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and others. The website has almost daily updates.
Wolfram Alpha Music Search
Unique database presents numerical information with supporting graphics and audio files.
Sample searches include finding the interval between notes, the notes in a scale, chordal information, and information on specific musical works.
Links to example music searches, input your terms in the top search box.
WWW Sites of Interest to Musicologists
From the American Musicological Society.

Public Web Sites with Music Online

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
Digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder records from 1895-1920s with downloadable and streaming audio.
Archive.Org
Includes over 100,000 recordings of live concert performances, and nearly 2 million additional audio recordings, including a collection of freely downloadable/streamable, often Creative Commons-licensed catalogs of 'virtual record labels' recordings.

Associate Library Director

Amy Bryant

She/Her

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Contact:

Lilly Library
Request a Research Appointment

765-983-1302

Subjects: African & African American Studies (AAAS), Art, History, Museum Studies, Music, Theatre Arts, Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies