Find Background Information: Online Reference Sources
Reference sources help establish basic information, such as the definition of an unfamiliar music term or the dates of a composer's life. These are not generally considered scholarly sources (with the exception of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music) and do not necessarily need to be cited or quoted from in research papers or projects.
- Baker's Biographical Dictionary of MusiciansThe six volumes of the 9th edition (2001) of this major reference source are available online as a component of the Classical Music Reference Library database. Includes biographical entries on classical composers and musicians, as well as increased coverage of jazz and popular musicians from previous editions.
- Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (Music Online) This link opens in a new windowComprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world’s peoples. Contains hundreds of articles about the music of every continent. Includes the searchable full-text of the ten-volume print encyclopedia ; associated audio examples ; musical illustrations, photographs, and drawings ; song texts and score examples ; charts and maps of world regions
- Grove Music Online This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive compendium of music scholarship offering the full texts 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), as well as numerous subsequent updates and emendations. Including more than 50,000 signed articles and 30,000 biographies contributed by over 6,000 scholars from around the world, Grove Music Online is the unsurpassed authority on all aspects of music. Grove Music Online is accessed via the Oxford Music Online portal where it can be cross-searched with The Oxford Dictionary of Music.
- Harvard Dictionary of MusicThe best known quick reference source of musical terminology.Short entry defininations alternate with some essay-length articles on historical periods, styles, and key concepts.
- Oxford Companion to MusicNewly revised for an online-only edition in 2011, this resource includes new and updated biographies, with a particular emphasis on contemporary composers; new terms; and improved cross-referencing. In articles that range from clear, concise definitions of musical ideas and terms to extended surveys of musical forms and styles, the Companion features authoritative coverage of virtually every musical subject. The Oxford Companion to Music is accessed via the Oxford Music Online portal where it can be cross-searched with Grove Music Online and The Oxford Dictionary of Music.
- Oxford Dictionary of Musiccontains 5,000 entries on composers, most of which include up-to-date work-lists, performers, individual works, musical terms, forms and styles, instruments, as well as general themes such as musicology, acoustics, and absolute pitch, and historical periods such as the Byzantine era. The Oxford Dictionary of Music is accessed via the Oxford Music Online portal where it can be cross-searched with Grove Music Online and The Oxford Companion to Music.
- Classical Music Reference Library (Music Online) This link opens in a new windowTexts span the entire history of Western classical music from the Medieval period to the 21st century including coverage of all classical genres, definitions of musical terms, and biographical information on the major composers and artists. The collection provides coverage of a wide range of material types, including biographies, chronologies, primary source readings, and critical texts. Features online version of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Centennial Edition (9th), 2001.
- African American Music Reference (Music Online) This link opens in a new windowAfrican American Music Reference will contain 50,000 pages of text and 17,000 pages of liner notes that offers the first comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
Research and Information Guides
Routledge has published a series of Research and Information Guides for Music, mostly around individual Genres, Instruments, and Composers. These guides provide excellent background information and describes important scholarship and perspectives for new research. Here are some examples:
Miles Davis: A Research and Information Guide by
This research and information guide provides a wide range of scholarship on the life, career, and musical legacy of Miles Davis, and is compiled for an interdisciplinary audience of scholars in jazz and popular music, musicology, and cultural studies. It serves as an excellent tool for librarians, researchers, and scholars sorting through the massive amount of material in the field.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1317228391Publication Date: 2017-08-15
Chamber Music: A Research and Information Guide by
Chamber Music: A Research and Information Guide is a reference tool for anyone interested in chamber music. It is not a history or an encyclopedia but a guide to where to find answers to questions about chamber music. The third edition adds nearly 600 new entries to cover new research since publication of the previous edition in 2002. Most of the literature is books, articles in journals and magazines, dissertations and theses, and essays or chapters in Festschriften, treatises, and biographies. In addition to the core literature obscure citations are also included when they are the only studies in a particular field. In addition to being printed, this volume is also for the first time available online. The online environment allows for information to be updated as new research is introduced. This database of information is a "live" resource, fully searchable, and with active links. Users will have unlimited access, annual revisions will be made and a limited number of pages can be downloaded for printing.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1135848270Publication Date: 2010-06-10
Women in Music: An Information and Research Guide by
Women in Music: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography emerging from more than twenty-five years of feminist scholarship on music. This book testifies to the great variety of subjects and approaches represented in over two decades of published writings on women, their work, and the important roles that feminist outlooks have played in formerly male-oriented academic scholarship or journalistic musings on women and music.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1135848149Publication Date: 2012-07-26
William Byrd: A Research and Information Guide by
This comprehensive research guide surveys the most significant published materials relating to William Byrd. This new edition includes research since the publication of the last edition.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780203112342Publication Date: 2012-05-04
The Musical: A Research and Information Guide by
The musical, whether on stage or screen, is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable musical genres, yet one of the most perplexing. What are its defining features? How does it negotiate multiple socio-cultural-economic spaces? Is it a popular tradition? Is it a commercial enterprise? Is it a sophisticated cultural product and signifier? This research guide includes more than 1,400 annotated entries related to the genre as it appears on stage and screen. It includes reference works, monographs, articles, anthologies, and websites related to the musical. Separate sections are devoted to sub-genres (such as operetta and megamusical), non-English language musical genres in the U.S., traditions outside the U.S., individual shows, creators, performers, and performance. The second edition reflects the notable increase in musical theater scholarship since 2000. In addition to printed materials, it includes multimedia and electronic resources.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1135848076Publication Date: 2011-06-02
