Music History

This research guide covers the history of western music from early times to present. It identifies the best resources and search tools and also provides helpful advice on library research. 

The Reference & Instruction team at Thrift Library have designed a series of Scavenger Hunts to help you practice your skills finding information and using your research skills. These Scavenger Hunts will provide you with five terms to search in Google in order to determine a mystery music artist! Then, you will have the opportunities to further research that person in order to practice more with the library's resources.

Choose any of the following links to participate!

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The databases tab of the Thrift Library website includes a feature that filters databases by category, so that users can find all of the databases that are grouped specifically for the course or topic that is relevant to their project. For this course, the relevant groupings would be those of "music," "history," and "interdisciplinary."

Fine Arts & Music

Search millions of articles about drama, music, art history, and filmmaking. Diverse resource for serious fine art students. 

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music

With 9,000 pages-- the complete online version of the print set also includes associated audio tracks, musical illustrations, photographs, drawings, song texts, score examples, charts, and maps. 

IPA Source

The web's largest library of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions and literal translations of opera arias and art song texts. Now with over 12,000 titles!

Library Music Source

This resource contains over 300,000 pages of Western Classical sheet music from over 35,000 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, piano, organ, voice, chorus, strings, winds, percussion, and guitar. 

Oxford Music Online

The Oxford Music Online gateway provides access to multiple music resources including the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music.

AllMusic lets users sample or purchase music recordings, giving access to the first 30 seconds of hundreds of thousands of recordings, as well as accompanying notes, biographies, reviews, and classical composition descriptions. Users must register to listen, but it is free. 

American Ballet Theatre Ballet Dictionary hosts a unique interactive resource designed to bring dance to the Web and make it accessible to everyone.

The Library of Congress in collaboration with the American Choral Directors Association produced an online encyclopedia in order to access significant choral music in the public domain by the leading American composers from 1870-1923. Users can find digitized items from the collections, special presentations on topics and collections, and articles and biographical essays, finding aids to collections, databases for performing arts resources, and a special Performing Arts Resources Guide which contains entries for hundreds of Library collections, websites, databases, and exhibits. 

American Musicological Society includes resources such as music history documents, dissertations, websites of interest to musicologists, job listings, conference plans, and much more.

The Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) is a repository of materials covering a range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era. The AAAMC collections highlight popular, religious, and classical music, with genres ranging from blues and gospel to R&B and contemporary hip-hop.

The Aria Database is a diverse collection of information on over 1,000 operatic arias. Designed for singers and non-singers alike, the Database includes translations and aria texts of most arias as well as a collection of MIDI files of operatic arias and ensembles. 

Baroque Music Pages contains articles, composer biographies, portraits, and music samples.

ChoralNet contains forums, choral organizations, choirs, resources, and the latest news of interest to the choral world. 

Crank Up the Phonograph: Who We Are and Where We Came from in Early Sound Recordings is a free academic work that attempts to understand how Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries viewed themselves, others, and the general world they encountered. 

The George F. Devine Music Library at the University of Tennessee Knoxville has compiled a wonderful links page to online music collections and library holdings. 

Princeton University compiled a list of links and resources from their music department of Gregorian chants. 

The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online archive of Broadway records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today. IBDB provides a comprehensive database of shows produced on Broadway, including all "title page" information about each production. IBDB also offers historical information about theatres and various statistics and fun facts related to Broadway.

The Journal of Music History Pedagogy is a biannual, peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal dedicated to the publication of original articles and reviews related to teaching music history of all levels (undergraduate, graduate, and general) and disciplines. The JMHP holds no single viewpoint on what constitutes good teaching and endorses all types of scholarship on music history pedagogy that are well-researched, objective, and challenging.

The Library of Congress in collaboration with Sony gives free online access to over 10,000 music and spoken-word recordings produces in the U.S. between 1901 and 1925  through the National Jukebox.

OnMusic Dictionary includes browsing by instrument, composers, symbol charts, and various other categories. 

Public Domain Music is a reference site to help identify music and songs in the public domain; this is royalty-free music that users can use anywhere in any way they choose.

Renaissance Channel is devoted to the performance of medieval and renaissance music.

The University of California Los Angeles has developed a Sheet Music Consortium that collects an assortment of tools and services to students to access online sheet music by scholars, students, and the general public.

The organizational site for the Society for Music Theory contains a variety of resources for those interested in the fundamentals of music theory, including links to bibliographies and information about computer-aided instruction (can be found under basic theory).

Computer databases Themefinder compiles musical themes where users can narrow down searches by things such as interval, scale, pitch, and contour. 

Slonimsky, Nicolas. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.

Available online and in a physical copy at Thrift!

LOC Call Number: ML105 .B16 2001

Boomhower, Daniel F., Edward M. Komara, Amanda Maple, and Liza Vick. A Basic Music Library: Essential Scores and Sound Recording. Fourth Edition. Vol. 1–3. 3 vols. Chicago: American Library Association, 2017.

LOC Call Number: ML113.B3 2017

Southern, Eileen. Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.

LOC Call Number: ML105.S67 1982

Pulver, Jeffrey. A Biographical Dictionary of Old English Music. New York: B. Franklin, 1969.

LOC Call Number: ML106.G7 P9 1969

Feather, Leonard G., and Ira Gitler. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

LOC Call Number: ML102.J3 F39 1999

Briscoe, James. Historical Anthology of Music by Women. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1986.

LOC Call Number: M1.H57 1987

Larkin, Colin. Encyclopedia of Popular Music. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Nettl, Bruno, Ruth M. Stone, James Porter, and Timothy Rice. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. New York: Garland Publishers, 1998.

LOC Call Number: ML100 .G16 1998

Bayne, Pauline Shaw. A Guide to Library Research in Music. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2008.

LOC Call Number: ML3797.B29 2008

Apel, Willi. Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.

LOC Call Number: ML100.A64 1969

Briscoe, James, Violet Archer, Thea Musgrave, Cecile Chaminade, Louise Farrenc, Clara Schumann, Ethel Smyth, Fanny M. Hensel, and Cacc. Historical Anthology of Music by Women. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1986.

LOC Call Number: M1.H57 1987

Diamond, Harold J. Music Analyses: An Annotated Guide to the Literature. New York: Schirmer Books, 1991.

LOC Call Number: ML128.A7 D5 1991

Gottlieb, Jane. Music Library and Research Skills. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.

LOC Call Number: ML3797.G68 2009

Duckles, Vincent H., and Michael A. Keller. Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Schirmer Books, 1988.

LOC Call Number: ML113.D83 1988

Macy, Laura Williams. The New Grove Book of Opera Singers. Second edition. Oxford: University Press, 2008.

Griffiths, Paul. The New Penguin Dictionary of Music. London: Penguin, 2006.

Kennedy, Joyce Bourne. Opera: the Great Composers and Their Masterworks. London [Eng: Mitchell Beazley, 2008.

Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Both editions are available as physical copies at Thrift!

LOC Call Number: ML160 .T37 [Year of preferred edition]

Garrett, Charles Hiroshi. The Grove Dictionary of American Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Available online and in a physical copy at Thrift!

LOC Call Number: ML101.U6 N48 2013

For guidance about using Oxford Music Online, click here. 

Helander, Brock. The Rock Who’s Who: A Biographical Dictionary and Critical Discography Including Rhythm-and-Blues, Soul, Rockabilly, Folk, Country, Easy Listening, Punk, and New Wave. New York: Schirmer Books, 1982.

LOC Call Number: ML102.R6 H5 1982

Pendle, Karin. Women in Music: A Research and Information Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Bangert, Mark P., and Edward Foley. Worship Music: A Concise Dictionary. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000.

LOC Call Number: ML102.C5 W67 2000

Chase, Gilbert. America’s Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present. Revised 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

LOC Call Number: ML200.C5 1987

Myers, Helen. Ethnomusicology. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.

LOC Call Number: ML3798.E84 1992

Pendle, Karin. Women & Music: A History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Randel, Don M. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996.

LOC Call Number: ML3799.E8 1992

Olsen, Dale A., and Daniel Edward Sheehy. The Garland Handbook of Latin American Music. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Miller, Terry E., and Sean Williams. The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. The Garland Library of Readings in Ethnomusicology: A Core Collection of Important Ethnomusicologies. New York: Garland Pub., Inc., 1990.

LOC Call Number: ML3799.G37 1990

Slonimsky, Nicolas. The Great Composers and Their Works. New York: Schirmer Books, 2000.

LOC Call Number: ML160.S48 2000

Miller, Hugh M., and Dale Cockrell. History of Western Music. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.

LOC Call Number: ML160.C67 1991

Hamm, Charles. Music in the New World. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1983.

LOC Call Number: ML200.H17 1983

Wright, Craig M. Music in Western Civilization. Belmont, CA: Thomson Schirmer, 2006.

LOC Call Number: ML160.W955 2006

Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin. Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. New York: Schirmer Books, 1984.

LOC Call Number: ML160.M865 1984

Cramer, Alfred Willliam. Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century. 5 vols. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2009.

Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Both editions are available as physical copies at Thrift!

LOC Call Number: ML160 .T37 [Year of preferred edition]

Wade, Bonnie C. Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

LOC Call Number: ML3798.W33 2004

Apel, Willi. The History of Keyboard Music to 1700. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972.

LOC Call Number: ML549.A6413

Schoenberg, Arnold. Theory of Harmony. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

LOC Call Number: MT50.S37 1978

Gracyk, Theodore, and Andrew Kania. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music. 1st ed. Routledge Philosophy Companions. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Irwin, Stevens. Dictionary of Pipe Organ Stops: Detailed Description of More than 600 Stops, Together with Definition of Many Other Terms Connected with the Organ, and an Examination of the Acoustical Properties of Many Types of Pipes and the Various Divisions of the Organ. New York: G. Schirmer, 1965.

LOC Call Number: ML552.I75 1965

Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. American ed. New York: Schirmer Books, 1994.

LOC Call Number: ML102.M88 G3 1994

Bloom, Ken. American Song: The Complete Musical Theatre Companion. 2nd ed., 1877-1995. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996.

LOC Call Number: ML128.M78 B6 1996

Jackson, Arthur. The Best Musicals from Show Boat to A Chorus Line: Broadway, off Broadway, London. New York: Crown Publishers, 1977.

LOC Call Number: ML1950.J22 1977

Gottfried, Martin. Broadway Musicals. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1979.

LOC Call Number: ML1711.8.N3 G68 1979

Norton, Richard C. A Chronology of American Musical Theater. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2002.

LOC Call Number: ML1711.8.N3 N67 2002

Gänzl, Kurt. Gänzl’s Book of the Broadway Musical: 75 Shows, from H.M.S. Pinafore (1879) to Sunset Boulevard (1994). New York: Schirmer Books, 1995.

LOC Call Number: MT95.G19 1995

Gänzl, Kurt. Ganzl’s Book of the Musical Theatre. 1st American ed. New York: Schirmer Books, 1989.

LOC Call Number: MT95.G2 1989

Suskin, Steven. Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers. Revised and Expanded 4th ed. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2010.

Lewine, Richard. Songs of the Theater. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1984.

LOC Call Number: ML128.S3 L55 1984

Hischak, Thomas S. Stage It with Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1993.

LOC Call Number: ML102.M88 H6 1993

Barlow, Harold. A Dictionary of Opera and Song Themes: Including Cantatas, Oratorios, Lieder, and Art Songs. New York: Crown Publishers, 1966.

LOC Call Number: ML128.V7 B3 1950

Kennedy, Joyce Bourne. Opera the Great Composers and Their Masterworks. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2008.

MacMurray, Jessica M., and Allison Brewster Franzetti. The Book of 101 Opera Librettos: Complete Original Language Texts with English Translations. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1996.

LOC Call Number: ML48.B66 1996

Macy, Laura Williams. The New Grove Book of Opera Singers. Second edition. Oxford: University Press, 2008.

Mayer, Martin. The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

LOC Call Number: ML1711.8.N3 M46 1983

Bloom, Ken. American Song: The Complete Musical Theatre Companion. 2nd ed. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996.

LOC Call Number: ML128.M78 B6 1996

Gargan, William, and Sue Sharma. Find That Tune: An Index to Rock, Folk-Rock, Disco & Soul in Collections. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1984.

LOC Call Number: ML128.R6 F56 1984

Lax, Roger. The Great Song Thesaurus. 2nd ed., Updated and Expanded. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

LOC Call Number: ML128.S3 L4 1989

Temperley, Nicholas. The Hymn Tune Index: A Census of English-Language Hymn Tunes in Printed Sources from 1535 to 1820. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

LOC Call Number: ML128.H8 T46 1998

Swain, Joseph Peter. Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music. 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin. Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. New York: Schirmer Books, 1984.

LOC Call Number: ML160.M865 1984

Strunk, W. Oliver. Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era. New York: Norton, 1950.

LOC Call Number: ML160.S89 1950

Scores may be cataloged in multiple formats, such as books, reference books, and miniature scores. There are also many websites containing free scores and sheet music.

Musical Scores are cataloged in the M's according to the Library of Congress Classification System.

               M – Scores

               ML – Literature on music

               MT – Musical Instruction and Study

To find a score in OneSearch, search for the composer or composition, and then limit your search to Score.

Be mindful of spelling errors or variations of spellings. 

Thrift Library is home to over 70,000 books. They can be very helpful when researching and working on projects. But how do you access them? Here is simple guide showing the two main ways of finding a physical book. 

Step 1: Search for the book

Begin by looking in the Thrift Library catalog. You can then narrow your search from the results page. This video gives you a quick tutorial:

Simple Search
You can do a simple search by entering the book title and/or the author into the search box. If you want to find books on your topic, enter 1-3 keywords that describe your topic. Keyword examples: ancient Greek vases; Vincent van Gogh; sculpting in the 19th century; Chinese wall hangings. 

Advanced Search
For more precise searching use the Advanced Search. Click "Advanced Search" to the right of the search box. Fill out the boxes to limit to specified fields like Title or Author. 

Physical Items
From the search results page you can limit your results to physical books held by Thrift Library. Look to the left side of the page under "Refine my results" and select the following options:
Under Resource Type, select Books
Under Availability, select Held by library

Step 2: Locating the book

Once you have identified the book you wish to use, note the call number (example: LC3731.F45 2002) and navigate to the stacks (shelves) on the second floor of the library. There is signage there to direct you in finding the items according to its call number.

Library of Congress Classification System
A call number is like an address for a book. It tells you exactly where to go to find the book on the shelf. The call number is made up of letters, whole numbers, decimals, a publication date, and occasionally a volume and/or copy number. This allows for each book to have a specific location. One book's location cannot be confused with another book's location. 

Thrift Library uses the Library of Congress Classification System; here is an example: LA 212 .R423 2005. 
LA specifies the subject classification (L for Education and A for History, so History of Education).  
212 is read as a whole number. 
The next line, .R423, is called the Cutter number. This line is read as a decimal (.R423 would come after .R76). 
2005 is the publication date.  

Step 3: Checkout

Once you have acquired your book, you are free to peruse it at your leisure. If you have finished using it while you are here, return it to the desk. If you want to take it with you, you can check it out. All you have to do for that is to come to the front desk with your student ID, which serves as your library card. Someone should be there to assist you. They will then check out the book and let you know about the due date for return, and  you can check that by signing into the catalog at any time after checking out!

If Thrift does not have something you are looking for, you can request it from other libraries! 

PASCAL Delivers

PASCAL is a FREE, rapid delivery interlibrary loan (ILL) service for print books and digitized copies of journal articles and book chapters. 

1. Use the catalog as you normally would (i.e. the above instructions.)
2. If you cannot find the item(s), enable "Add results available through interlibrary loan" under the "Refine my results" menu on the left side of the page: 
3. Click on the title of the item you would like to request and click the appropriate button to open the PASCAL Delivers Request Form. Make sure that the bibliographic data you provide in the form is complete and accurate. 
4. Physical books will arrive at the PASCAL library location you selected within 2-14 days. You will receive an email when your items are ready for pickup. Digital items will be emailed directly to your AU email account, typically within 1-5 days.

ILL Request Options

All loaning systems in addition to PASCAL can be found here. 

For any questions about these services, you can contact reference@andersonuniversity.edu.

1. Visit the second floor of Thrift Library, where you'll find the stacks!
2. Look at the first letter(s). Books are arranged in alphabetical order.
   • N comes before P
   • PL comes before PN
   • Browse the signs on the end of the bookshelves to find your section
3. When you find the correct shelving area, scan over the numbers on the spine label (102 is one hundred two, not 1-0-2).
4. After that number, search alphabetically from the other letter after the decimal.
5. Some copies are arranged by publication date as well, the year will appear at the end of the call number. 

Example

NB 1115 .A32 2020

NB is the section to search for, in alphabetical order between NA and NC. 

1115 is the numbers before the decimal in numerical order on the shelf.

A32 after the decimal will be in alphabetical and then numerical order.

2020 is the publication year. If another edition of the same book was published in 2018, the two copies will be right next to each other with 2018 appearing first because they are shelved in chronological order.

The databases tab of the Thrift Library website includes a feature that filters databases by category, so that users can find all of the databases that are grouped specifically for the course or topic that is relevant to their project. For this course, the relevant groupings would be those of "music," "history," and "interdisciplinary."

Begin by looking in the Thrift Library catalog. You can then narrow your search from the results page.

 This video gives you a quick tutorial:

Simple Search
You can do a simple search by entering the book title and/or the author into the search box. If you want to find books on your topic, enter 1-3 keywords that describe your topic. 

_{Keyword examples: ancient Greek vases; Vincent van Gogh; sculpting in the 19th century; Chinese wall hangings.}

Advanced Search
For more precise searching use the Advanced Search. 

Click "Advanced Search" to the right of the search box. 

Fill out the boxes to limit to specified fields like "Title" or "Author." 

Limit Search Results to E-Books
From the search results page you can limit your results to electronic (digital) books held by Thrift Library.

Look to the left side of the page under "Refine my results" and select the following options:

• Under "Resource Type," select "Books"
• Under "Availability," select "Available online"

Articles and Journals
From the search results page you can also look at physical items, articles, or essays written on the topic of your choice. 

Use "Refine my results" to hone in on these as well by selecting things like Peer-Reviewed Journals and Articles.

Search for Articles

The Thrift Library catalog provides access to peer-reviewed, scholarly journals and trade journals in digital format via its many databases. 

Locate an Article 

Use the search box in the Thrift Library catalog to search for articles across most of the library's subscription databases.

Not all databases are integrated with our catalog. Searching individual databases will help you cast a wider net. 

On the search results page, look under "Refine my results" on the left side.

Select "Peer-Reviewed Journals" and "Articles." 

To exclude other options, select the red box beside a filter, such as the one for "Review Articles" so that your results are limited to the type of article you want.

An example screenshot with these filters on would be this: 
 

Once you locate an item, open its record and scroll to the "View Online" section to see which database(s) provide access to it.

 Note that databases provide two types of search results:
          1. Actual sources, which include the full-text article.
          2. Surrogate records, which only provide the article's metadata such as the author's name, article and journal titles, publication information, and an abstract and/or summary. 

If the catalog record does provide access to the full-text of the article, follow the PASCAL Delivers instructions to request that it be emailed to you through interlibrary loan (ILL).

Select a database to access the article from the available options. If it provides full text, there should be an option to view/download a PDF.