Music

Always begin research on a new musical topic by reading the relevant articles in Grove. This will give you an overview of the subject, written by various top musicologists, and provide a fine bibliography to continue your search.

There are many additional, more specialized reference tools, which are similar in scope to the New Grove ... and are available as print resources in the Kulas reference collection:

We have many types of reference sources, such as those that cover:

• specific genres of music (String Quartets)
• group biography (Women in Music)
• individual composers (Johannes Brahms)

We also have reference sources that index:

• existing repertoires (The heritage encyclopedia of band music)
• specific repertoires over time (A chronology of American musical theater)
• primary source material (Census-catalogue of manuscript sources of polyphonic music, 1400-1550)
• holdings of libraries with primary sources (Catalogue of printed music published between 1487 and 1800 now in the British Museum)

The best method for locating these tools is the library's online catalog.

The primary databases which index the literature of music include RILM and Music Index. These databases index journals which cover music history and biography, music analysis, performance practice, music education and all genres and types of music such as classical, jazz, world music and popular genres.

RILM or Music Index -- Which Should I Use?

1. RILM has more direct links to full text.
2. Music Index indexes more popular music sources.
3. The RILM interface is more powerful, but more complex.
4. RILM contains abstracts (which are searchable).

Search Strategy: There is a way to search both RILM and Music Index simultaneously. Select the 'choose databases' option when you open either RILM or Music Index from the A-Z database list. Both databases are provided via EBSCO, allowing you to search both at the same time. You can also add other databases from the selections offered.

Highly specialized music databases and music-related articles appear in many other fields, and the A-Z database list can help you in exploring those databases and literatures. Databases which index the literatures of education in general, psychology and neuroscience are essential to the study of music education. The literature of business contains a wealth of information on all aspects of the business of music, such as marketing or copyright.

In addition, some full text databases may be highly relevant to music. Early English Books Online provides access to facsimiles of English materials published in the 16th and 17th centuries and includes collections of songs from the time.