Music : Websites

"Online collections of written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience." Browse the "Performing Arts, Music" collections.

Dedicated to playing the recorder (soprano, alto, tenor, or bass recorders). Great instruments for playing Renaissance music (solo or in a recorder consort).

Covers the history of popular music in the United States from 1790 to the present. Accessible through the UCLA Library catalog, "the Archive is an initiative designed to provide access to digital versions of the sheet music and performances of the songs now in the public domain."

"ASCAP . . . is the leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization representing over 500,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers."

Contains live classical concerts and opera performances worldwide

Includes albums, songs, films, video, images, memorabilia, history, and more.

Select the Subject category and choose "Art, architecture, and performing arts."

"Over a century and a half of adventurous performance and programming featuring artists from the city and the world beyond."

A primary source on the life and music of American jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck

"Indices of chants in selected manuscripts and early printed sources of the liturgical Office."

Introduction to research on the music of Africa and the black diaspora from Columbia College Chicago. Contains useful definitions of styles and genres as well as a discography of music by black composers

Middle Tennessee State University created The Center for Popular Music. "It maintains research-level collections in all genres, but specializes in rock music and its roots, various forms of vernacular religious music, and the music of Tennessee and the Southeast."

" . . . features more than 9000 pages and 20,000+ images including more than 7200 CD, SACD [super audio CD], DVD, Blu-ray, Book and Concert reviews and over 5500 links to other classical music web sites."

More than 100,000 master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. An initiative of the University of California-Santa Barbara and the Packard Humanities Institute

Global access to European electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)

The latest complete edition of the works of Mozart including extensive commentary.

"MTO is peer reviewed and is indexed in RILM, Music Index, and other periodical indexes." Accessible free of charge

From the American Musicological Society comes "an international database of bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, as well as related musical, scientific, and humanistic disciplines." Useful in conjunction with Fordham InterLibrary Loan.

Latest headlines, reviews, and current and archived articles about jazz

An index to recorded and print resources

From Oberlin College Libraries

"Lists death dates for musicians as reported in current media. Updated daily."

"Global Jukebox presents a variety of audio, visual, and written materials created by and around renowned ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax."

A collaboration between the Blair School of Music and the University Libraries of Vanderbilt University, the Global Music Archive "is a multi-media archive and resource center for traditional and popular song, music, and dance of Africa and the Americas."

90-year Archive of Gramophone; "the world's best classical music reviews."

Images of over 3000 pieces covering a wide range of song styles: minstrel songs, spirituals, sentimental, political, and patriotic songs, et al.

"Contains all hymn tunes printed anywhere in the world with English-language texts up to 1820 and their publication history up to that date." Includes a Tune Search, Text Search, Source Search, and Composer Search. From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"A live music library which has temed with etree.org to preserve and archive as many live concerts as possible; all music in this Collection is from trade-friendly artists and is strictly non-commercial."

Digital collection from MIT's Lewis Music Library; includes songs and piano pieces from 1890-1920. "Published in the U.S., the music focuses on technologies as represented in music." Music available in PDF format.

Hamilton College has established a jazz archive which includes almost 300 videotapes of brief interviews with jazz artists and other figures of the big band/swing era.

" . . a centralized information source for the songs and instrumentals jazz musicians play most frequently . . ." Answers question, "What is a jazz standard?" Includes songs, biographies, history of jazz, theory; lists top 1000 jazz standards and more.

"Founded in 1942, [the League] . . . is the only national organization dedicated soley to the orchestral experience."

Special Collections at the Sheridan Libraries of The Johns Hopkins University. "Consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music. The Collection spans the years 1780-1980, but its strength is its thorough documentation of nineteenth-century America through popular music."

" . . . the world's largest reference archive of texts and translations of art songs and choral works." Indexed by composer, poet, language, composer title, first line, and songs in English or English translation (title and first line). Searches only the text, not the translations.

From the University of Dayton

"Search through this up-to-date chronicle of every Metropolitan Opera performance since 1883 for complete information on all performers, operas, and ballets at the Met; includes photos, designs, reviews, statistics, and chapters on great events in Met history."

Listen live on the Web

From OpenStax, by Dr. Richard Baraniuk from Rice University where authors and learners can share and freely adapt educational materials

"Access to digitized versions of more than 500 music manuscripts" including works by Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Faurè, Hayden, Liszt, Mahler, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Puccini, Schubert, Schumann, among others.

Education from the Naxos Music Library

From Brigham Young University, this site depicts music and dance bibliography and reference. It consists of online bibliographies, a blog, a basic introduction to reference tools, links to unpublished bibliographies, and a Facebook page.

Historical sound recordings made available to the public free of charge

" . . . a new multimedia publication from New Music USA is dedicated to the music of American composers and improvisers and their champions . . . [it] offers in-depth profiles, articles, and discussions" and up to the minute news.

A site for contemporary musicians and composers and their audiences.

Information on performances, artists, managers, companies, and statistics

Popular sheet music from the 1800s to the 1920s. "Over 1,300 songs and over 130 articles available."

"An automated tool for creating parts from music scores;" such as those from IMSLP

"A guide to performing arts resources at the Library of Congress; search and browse descriptions of music, theatre and dance resources by subject, title, or name."

Includes any song or musical work published in 1922 or earlier

Information about worship books printed before 1601; project developed at the University of Michigan

"The International Inventory of Musical Sources - Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - is an international, non-profit organization which aims for comprehensive documentation of extant musical sources worldwide. These primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections." The majority of the sources were published prior to 1800.

"A non-profit collaborative project of the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities at Stanford University and the Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory at the Ohio State University. Provides a web-based interface . . . which allows searching of databases containing musical themes or incipits."

Ear-training tool

Music theory flash cards

From the English-based Dolmetsch Foundation. Notation, meter, rhythm, chord structures, and more.

Free tools for learning basic music theory; mobile access to lessons.

2006 Merlot Classic Award in music. Some animated lessons, ear-training exercises, compositional tools, staff paper generator, and more. Created and maintained by software engineer Ricci Adams.

For anyone to use and enjoy; sheet music included. Search by song title or music artist. From Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Moonlight Sonata and more.

"The largest organization in the world that represents the interests of professional musicians."

"Founded in 1934, this nonprofit seeks to advance research in various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship."

"A nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings in all genres and formats, and from all time periods."

"Search engine created for musicians, allowing them to search through hundreds of Web sites for scores, sheet music, tabs, backing tracks, audio files, lyrics, MP3s, and other information. It was created by . . . Sergey Koroler. An important note: as this site is based in Russia, it may provide access to music covered under public domain in Russia, but may be protected by copyright laws in the United States."

Makes Mozart's musical compositions available to the general public for personal study or educational use. English translation available.

Provides access to all medieval and early modern manuscripts of Switzerland through a virtual library.

International Music Score Library Project. Access to more than 200,000 music scores from both public domain and from composers who are willing to share. Audio recordings also available. Online forums and discussion pages.

"Site contains more than 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright thanks to the Library of Congress. It includes popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books, instructional materials, and music for bands and orchestra."

"Nonprofit charity that focuses on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources. The site has both free sheet music and recordings available without copyright restrictions."

"Offers scores of classical music by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, and others. All sheet music on this site is in the public domain and free to download, print, perform, and distribute. Some audio records are included . . ."

22 sheet music collections. Sheet music is browseable by repository, title, composer, publisher, and date. Consortium includes the Library of Congress, National Library of Australia, Duke University, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, and University of Maine; UCLA hosts the consortium.

Online access to digital audio files of cylinders in the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive at Syracuse University Library; more than 22,000 cylinders. The digital recordings are accessible in both MP3 and WAV file formats.

"The University of California-Santa Barbara has made the digital audio files of about 8,000 cylinder recordings available on the Web site. The audio can be streamed within a browser or downloaded as MP3. . . The collection includes almost all types of recordings made from the late 19th and early 20th centuries . . . These are some of the oldest recordings to have been digitally preserved, as the originals were the first commercial recordings made. Recordings were etched into wax and transferred to metal cylinders that were the standard format before vinyl. . . Also a history of cylinders."

"Provides high quality, legal audio downloads from many genres. . . . directed by WFMU of New Jersey . . . All the audio on this site can be downloaded for free and has been cleared for certain uses (remix projects, production soundtracks, etc.) that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright laws."