Music Scores | Music Recordings | Journal Articles
Search LUCIA for Music Scores
The library owns over 18,000 scores which circulate to students, faculty and staff for the same period as books. All information describing the scores is fully searchable in LUCIA: composer, title, publisher, date, etc.
Search Databases for Music Scores
Online Resources for Music Scholars: Digital Scores: An insanely complete (as of today) clearing house for digital LEGAL scores. Includes 78 (yes, 78) sites providing access to public domain scores, manuscripts, facsimiles, you name it. Some sites also include other documents and audio files. Contains many of the sites listed below.
International Music Score Library Project: The goal is to create "...a virtual library containing all public domain music scores, as well as scores from composers (living or otherwise) who are willing to share their music with the world without charge." Contains not only full scores, chamber music parts and scores and vocal scores, but also now includes orchestral parts. More being added daily.
WIMA: Werner Icking Music Archive: "a miscellany of subject-specific musical material." But don't let that scare you. Search composers, forms, instruments or any other words. Get short informative texts, PDFs of scores and sound files. Contributors upload public domain scores.
The Henselt Library at European-American University - Public domain scores of rare nineteenth-century piano music: PDFs of over 2,000 rare scores of nineteenth-century piano music, many of which are not generally available elsewhere. The Henselt Library consists of public domain scores that are mostly for piano 2 hands, with a small number of concerto scores and reductions.
Choral Public Domain Library: Not just choral music. Contributor-generated (wiki) PDFs, midi files and more. "You can use CPDL to find scores, texts, translations, and information about composers."
Music Library Scores Collection: Made available by the University of Michigan Libraries. Comprised of over 1100 scores held in Music Library's general and special collections. Understandably Michigan-centric.
VARIATIONS Prototype: Online Musical Scores: From Indiana University. Viewable public domain scores with stable URLs. Easy navigation of the scores, but not set up for printing.
Art Song Central: A searchable/browsable archive of free, printable, public domain art songs. Includes key, range, IPA transcriptions for every German, French, Italian and Latin song in the index.
Digital Music Collection, Sibley Music Library: The Sibley Music Library at the Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester) has an extensive digital score collection with stable URLs which may be printed and downloaded. They also have a link by which you may request the digitization of a public domain score in Sibley's collection.
Internet Archive: Contains a surprising number of scores, particularly piano/vocal scores of operettas.
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music: A treasure trove of popular American sheet music. "The collection spans the years 1780 to 1980, but its strength is its throrough documentation of nineteenth-century America through popular music."
Search LUCIA for Music Recordings
The library owns over 6,000 CDs which circulate to students, faculty and staff for two weeks. All information describing the CDs is fully searchable in LUCIA: composer, performer, title, ensemble, date, etc.
Search Databases for Music Recordings
DRAM: Database of Recorded American Music : Not just American music, but a diverse collection of recordings from folk to opera, Native America to jazz, 19th century classical to early rock and much more.
Music Online: A cross-searchable platform of all several music databases: American Song, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, African American Music, and Jazz Music Library.
Smithsonian Global Sound: A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions. *Available On Campus Only.
Search for Journal Articles
- RILM and Music Index simultaneous search or
- Oxford Music Online (includes Grove)
Ask the Music Librarian
Antoinette Powell is the Music Librarian and oversees the music collections. She is available to answer questions and provide research assistance. She can be reached by email at antoinette.powell@lawrence.edu or by phone 832-6995.
