Databases

Academic Search Premier
The world's largest scholarly, multidiscipline, full-text database designed specifically for academic institutions. Contains full text for more than 4,500 peer-reviewed publications, in nearly all academic areas of study.

African American Song
Listen online to recordings of jazz, blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression.

American Song
American Song is a history database that contains 50,000 tracks from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.

Classical Music Library
Classical Music Library is a fully searchable classical music resource—a comprehensive database of distinguished classical recordings.

Contemporary World Music
This database from Alexander Street Press contains important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.

International Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text
Broad coverage from more than 400 music periodicals, with full text for more than 100.

Jazz Music Library
Thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.

Music Online
Online music resource that cross-searches all of the library's Alexander Street Press music databases.

Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
An encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions, with 35,000 tracks of music, spoken word, and natural and human-made sounds.

Web resources

Ethnomusicology
Provides links to Web resources related to ethnomusicology, folk music, and world music. Contents are arranged by type (organizations, bibliographies, etc.) and by geographic regions. Maintained by the University of Washington Music Library.

I Hear America Singing
A digital library of music and performing arts, provided by the Library of Congress.

The MHN Instrument Encyclopedia
A joint project of the University of Michigan's School of Information and School of Music. Instruments are divided into several basic categories (percussion, strings, etc). You can search by category, by geographic region or use a Search form. Entries include a description, a list of references, illustrations and links to related instruments.

Now what a time
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents music and contextual information from the Fort Valley (Georgia) State College Folk Festivals in the early 1940s (the only American folk festival featuring African American performers that was organized entirely by African Americans). The music played includes traditional folk, blues and gospel from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The documentary collections include 108 songs and instrumental pieces in a downloadable mp3 format.

Rhythmweb
This site covers the world of rhythm and percussion based music including jazz, reggae, African pop, samba and more. Contents can be searched by culture or instrument type. The Rhythmweb Radio offers sound files.

The Symphony: An Interactive Guide
This site has composer biographies, a time line and guides to musical instruments, forms and structures. Sound files are available via RealAudio. The text is drawn from standard music reference sources.

Dictionaries

Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians

Baker's dictionary of music

Concise Oxford dictionary of music (electronic resource)

The Harvard dictionary of music

The Oxford companion to music (electronic resource)

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of contemporary Christian music

Encyclopedia of world pop music

The Garland encyclopedia of world music

International dictionary of black composers

The new Grove dictionary of jazz

The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians

The Oxford companion to music (electronic resource)

Professional organizations

The College Music Society

MENC: The National Association for Music Education

Musical Organizations & Societies

National Association of Schools of Music

Finding books

By subject search

Below are some links to various subject searches in the catalog. The subject search is a specific and helpful way to find materials about your area of interest. Explore these or try some of your own subject searches using the "Subject" tab in Foxtrax. For more information on "power searching" by subject, ask your reference librarian.

By call number

If you want to browse for books in the library, use the call numbers below to find the subject areas that are of interest to you. You can use them to browse the reference section or the main stacks. The Library of Congress website may have a more detailed outline of call numbers for your subject area.

Customized search engine

FoxSearch Music

This Google Custom Search engine searches quality web sites selected by the library.