Subject Guide to Music

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If you need help, don't hesitate to ask at the reference desk, or contact Reference Librarians Linda Moore or Mark Maier.

Try these encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference guides to get started. Click on the link to see the call number.

General Encyclopedia:
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansRef ML100 .N48 2001
Grove Music Online

Jazz Encyclopedia:
The New Grove Dictionary of JazzRef ML102.J3 N48 2001

Opera Encyclopedia:
The New Grove Dictionary of OperaRef ML102.O6 N5 1992

American Music Encyclopedia:
The New Grove Dictionary of American MusicRef ML101.U6 N48 1986

Dictionary:
The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and MusiciansRef ML100 .H36 1999.

Style Manual:
How to Write About Music: The RILM Manual of StyleRef ML 3797.H69 2005

Finding Recorded or Printed Music in the Library's Collection

Search in the Mossey Library Main Catalog.

To find music of a particular type, search by Subject. (For example, "Symphonies".) Use the "Limit this search" button to limit to Format "Music Record" or "Music Scores".

To find a particular piece, first try searching by Keyword, using the composer's last name and unique words from the title. (For example, to find recordings of Bizet's Carmen, enter the phrase "Bizet and Carmen" in the search box.) Since musical works are usually entered in the catalog under a "uniform titles", the most successful search for a particular piece will use that title or elements from it.
Click here for more information on uniform titles, or ask a librarian for assistance. Individual pieces are also listed under the composer's or performer's name when an Author search is used, and may be searched by Title as well.

Feel free to browse the Library's collections of scores and CDs if you are not sure exactly what you need. The CDs are shelved on the 1st level near the videos and other media. They are shelved by "accession number", with the most recently purchased titles shelved near the end of the section. The scores are shelved on the 2nd level under call numbers beginning with "M"(not "ML" or "MT") in both the regular stacks and the Oversize stacks.

Finding Recorded or Printed Music in Other Libraries
Some libraries allow Interlibrary Loan (ILL) of their collections of printed music, and a few allow ILL of their collections of recordings. Search for scores or recordings in MeLCat and request the items directly from the web. Or use WorldCat and then submit ILL requests for those items you'd like to borrow.

Finding Recorded Music Online
Naxos Music Library: A web-based streaming audio collection of over 320,000 tracks of classical music plus other genres including jazz, blues and world music.

Finding Books
To find books in the Mossey Library, use the Mossey Library Catalog.

To find books about a particular composer or performer, use the person's name in a Subject search.

To find books about a particular piece of music, perform a subject search on the composer's name, and either scroll through the results, or limit the search to words in the subject, using words from the piece's uniform title. Use a Subject search as well to search for books about particular types of music (e.g., "Jazz", "Symphonies", "Choral music", etc.).

Most books about music are shelved in the regular stacks on the 2nd level under call numbers beginning with "ML" or "MT". Some are also available under those same call numbers in the Oversize stacks on the 2nd floor and in the Reference stacks on the 1st floor.

Use MeLCat to request books and audio-visual materials directly from other Michigan libraries over the web. Use OCLC WorldCat to search the holdings of over 3000 libraries worldwide in a single search. You will have to use interlibrary loan to obtain copies of these books.

Continuing on: the best places to find journal articles
Since most of the journals indexed in Humanities Abstracts are available in the Mossey Library, searches for articles about music should start there.

Another useful general index to try is Arts and Humanities Citation Index.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is a music-specific index that should  be consulted for more in-depth research.

Grove Music Online, a dynamic resource including the full text of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed.

Full text of articles from the full runs of 31 scholarly music journals is included in JSTOR.

Access to additional databases may be available, and some printed indexes may be useful for more comprehensive searches.

Ask a librarian for more information.

Scholarly Websites to Pursue

World Wide Web Sites of Interest to Musicologistsa gateway from the American Musicological Society.

Try searching GoogleScholar for scholarly literature across many disciplines and identify resources available from Mossey Library.

Librarians' Internet Index: Librarian selected websites related to music.

Classical Net: Contains information on composers, articles, reviews, and links to other classical music sites.

Baroque Music Homepage: Information on many composers of the period, essays, portraits, and more.

A Passion for Jazz! This site features a timeline, jazz history, photo gallery, and theory.

Aria Database: A searchable database offering information on operatic roles, translations of arias, and sound files of most arias.

American Memory from the Library of Congress Sheet Music Collections, The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, and Lift Every Voice: Music in American Life: These databases contain sheet music and historical information regarding America's rich musical history, from early days onward.

Public Domain Music: Determine whether or not a song is in the public domain.

Citing Music Sources: from the Music Library at the University of Western Ontario.

Link to the Hillsdale College Music Department