Music Resources on the Web


This guide is a selective list of useful music reference sources available via the Internet. It is not by any means a complete list. For general assistance on navigating the Internet see the Searching the Internet portion of the Library's pages. If you have any questions please ask the Music Librarian by calling x6995 or by sending an e-mail to Music.Librarian@lawrence.edu.


Directories  | Composers and Performers | Associations
 Publishers | Digital Projects | Misc. Databases and Reference Sources

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Directories

Worldwide Internet Music Resources (Indiana University)
Large directory of music related websites provided by the Cook Music Library at Indiana University. 
 
DW3 Classical Music Resources (Duke University)
Large directory of music related websites provided by the Duke University Music Library. 
 
Musical America 
The online equivalent of the popular print directory which has international listings for  the music business and includes listings for performing groups, opera companies, publishers, record companies, newspapers, services, camps, awards etc. The website also brings together industry news, press releases, performance reviews and a calendar of events. Listings includes address, phone, fax, web address and chief administrator for each entry. The Artist Search feature allows you to search for an artist, production company, band or orchestra for management information.  Better to be less specific with your data entry or be prepared to try different searches.
 
Andante
Andante's aim is "to serve as the de facto primary source of information on classical music for everyone from professionals to dedicated amateurs." This they aim to accomplish through their recording label and through their website which contains news, concert reviews, CD reviews, commentary, interviews; a concert and performance calendar; an online reference library; and all of the articles on classical music published in The New York Review of Books since 1963; and an online database of composers and their works.
 
WWW Sites of Interest to Musicologists (American Musicological Society)
List of scholarly resources and other sites of interest including libraries, schools of music, jobs, etc.
 
Internet Resources for Music Scholars (Harvard University)
Another directory of music related websites provided by Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard. 
 
Google--Arts--Music
The popular search engine has a good directory of music related resources.
 
Voice of the Shuttle: Music
This web directory brings together websites of interest to humanists and began at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Music section offers a selective list of resources on classical, jazz and non-western music.

 

Festival Finder
Provides details on over 1500 festivals. Covers Classical, Jazz, Blues, Cajun, Country, Alternative, Rock, Folk, Reggae festivals and more.
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Composer and Performer  Biography
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition
 The online full-text version of the important print reference work. Browse for composer and performer entries.
 
Gaylord Music Library Necrology Index
The Gaylord Music Library at Washington University maintains this index of composer and musician obituaries. Entries from 1991-  .  
 
Social Security Death Index (via ancestry.com)
This database contains information provided by the Social Security Administration. Useful for locating death dates.
 
All Music Guide
 Database of information on classical, jazz, rock, blues, gospel, world music, and more. Historical information, commentary, good discographies.
 
Biography (A & E)
The popular A&E program site includes brief composer and performer entries.  
 
Classical Composers' Archive
A personal website that includes pictures and dates for many composers from the baroque through the present. Also includes timelines, groupings by nationality and a list of Pulitzer Prize winners.
 
Classical Music Navigator
A website of information on classical composers and their works whose purpose is to help the casual listener identify related works.
 
Yahoo--Entertainment--Music--Artists
  Browse for composer, orchestra or artist sites. 
 
Composers' Homepages (Duke University)
  List of composer specific sites organized into historical periods.
 
Composers (Indiana University) 
  List of composer specific sites from the Gale Cook Music Library at Indiana University. 
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Associations, Societies, Organizations

 
Musical Organizations and Professional Societies (Indiana University)
A list of websites provided by the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at Indiana University. 
 
Musical America
Includes searcheable listings for professional music organizations. Scroll to Services and Professional Music Organizations or to International Services and Professional Music Organizations and search. Includes address, phone, fax, web address and chief administrator for each entry.

Quick Links:

American Choral Directors Association

American Guild of Organists

American Music Center

American Musicological Society

American String Teachers Association

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers)

BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.)

Center for Black Music Research (CBMR)

Chamber Music America

College Music Society

Early Music America

International Association of Jazz Education

MENC (National Association for Music Education)

Music Library Association

Music Teachers National Association (MTNA)

National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)

National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS)

Society for American Music (formerly Sonneck Society)

Society for Ethnomusicology

Society for Music Theory

Society for Seventeenth-Century Music

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 Publishers of Scores and Sound Recordings

 
Musical America
Search the directory for a domestic music publisher. Includes address, phone, fax, web address and chief administrator for each entry. 
 
Acqweb
            Includes links to book publisher websites, including out of print and other book related information. 

Music Publishers Association
Directory of domestic and international members of MPA. 
 
Publishers Catalogues Homepage
Many links to book, cd and music publisher homepages. Browse publishers by city, state, country, topics or types of material. 
 
Classical Sheetmusic Publishers and Distributors
Another site with links to music publisher homepages. Arranged by country. 
 
Yahoo--Business-Shopping--Music
Links to music label websites. Arranged alphabetically or by genre.

Large Retailers, Scores:

Theodore Front
Large and reputable sheetmusic and music book dealer. Large database of inventory searcheable online.
J.W. Pepper
Large and reputable sheetmusic and music book dealer. Large database of inventory searcheable online.

Large Retailers, Sound Recordings:

ArkivMusic.com
CDconnection.com
HB Direct
Tower Records
World Music Store
Berkshire Record Outlet (best in used classical) 
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Digital Projects

Acadia Early Music Archive
A collection of Renaissance and early Baroque scores. 
 
African American Sheet Music, 1850-1920
A collection of 1,305 pieces of African American sheet music from Brown University. 
 
American Memory Project 
The National Digital Library Program makes historical  holdings at the Library of Congress available over the internet and include photographs, scores, rare books, maps, recorded sound, and moving pictures. Notable music projects include Sheet Music about Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Civil War, Leonard Bernstein and numerous folk music projects. Click here to browse their music related projects. 
 
Choral Public Domain Library
An archive of 2800 choral scores. 
 
Cyber Hymnal  
Includes 2,900 Christian hymns and Gospel songs of different denominations.
 
Historic American Sheet Music (Duke University)
A project of the Rare Book/Manuscript/Special Collections Library at Duke University that provides access to digital images of 3,042 pieces published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.
 
Inventions of Note: Sheet Music Collection
Project of the Lewis Music Library at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Pieces 1890 to 1920 pertaining to new technologies of the time.  
 
Keffer Collection of Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1895
A collection 2,531 scores ranging in date from ca. 1790 to 1895from the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
29,000 pieces of music dating from 1780 to 1960 housed in Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. 
 
MuseData  
A digital collection of classical music scores and midi files. Part of Stanford University's  Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities.
 
19th-Century California Sheet Music
A virtual library of approximately 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900 from UC Berkeley.
 
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Miscellaneous Databases and Reference Sources

American Music Resource
A reference source devoted to all styles of  Western music. The source is browseable by genre or subject and lists bibliographies and reference works about the topic and provides links to selected Internet resources.
 
Analysis Index
An index to program notes and analyses of musical compositions in located in print sources provided by the George F. Devine Music Library at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 
 
Bach Bibliography
Database contains over 14,000 references to items about Bach. Includes citations to published books, articles, facsimiles, dissertations, and papers read at conferences.
 
Beethoven Bibliography Database
Database maintained by the Beethoven Center at San Jose State University. The Beethoven Bibliography Database provides information on  significant  published materials relating to Ludwig van Beethoven. Includes citations from the late 18th century to the present.
 
Boethius Server
Site of the Society for Music Theory. Home for Music Theory Online, their electronic journal and their database to journal articles related to music theory among other information. 
 
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online
DDM-Online is an index to dissertations-in-progress, dissertations reported since mid-1995, and dissertations published in the earlier printed editions of Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology, which are still available for purchase. Searchable by author or broad category.
 
International Directory of Musical Instrument Collections
A Directory jointly provided by the International Committee of Musical Instrument Museums and the American Musical Instrument Society.
 
International Index to Music Periodicals
IIMP is an index which helps you locate articles in music periodicals. Includes some full-text.
 
ITER Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
ITER is a non-profit research project whose goal is to  increase access to published materials pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the creation of bibliographic databases. Search for journal or books citations.
 
Music Education Resource Base
MERB/CMI is a bibliographic database of more than 30,000 resources in music and music education from 32 Canadian and International journals and other sources  covering the period 1956 through the present. The journals are fully indexed by title, author, and subject. 
 
Music Index
An index to help you locate articles in music periodicals. Gives citations for items.
 
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
 The online full-text version of the important print reference work.
 
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
An index to help you locate articles in periodicals as well as books, collections of essays, dissertations, videos, conference proceedings, etc. Includes abstracts.
 
Themefinder
A non-profit collaborative project of the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities (CCARH) at Stanford University and the Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory at the Ohio State University. 

see also the Reference Sources portion of the Library's webpages.

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And as always, if you need help, ask the Music Librarian or another Reference Librarian.

Revised 19-September-2003 by
Music.Librarian@lawrence.edu
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