Research Guides: Music: Databases

Finding Databases

1. Go to Library website: http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/library

2. Click on Database A-Z List

3. Browse Music Databases

Search Tutorials - Academic Journal Databases

Music Databases

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Music Online has lengthy articles on all aspects of music and musicology, including biographies, theory, ethnomusicology, and other areas of interest.
RILM (Index) This link opens in a new window
Produced by Rpertoire International de Littrature Musicale, this comprehensive music bibliography features citations, abstracts, and subject indexing. Facilitates both focused research and browsing for readers of all levels. From hip hop to Hndel, from ethnomusicology to music therapy, from elementary music education to advanced music theory, RILM is first stop for the researcher who wants clear, verified bibliographic information.
Music Online: Classical Music Library This link opens in a new window
Classical Music Library is the world's largest multi-label database of Classical music recordings for listening and learning in libraries. This ever growing collection includes recordings from the world's greatest labels including Hyperion, Bridge Records, Sanctuary Classics, Artemis-Vanguard, Hnssler Classic, Vox and many more. Coverage includes music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers.

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music
Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music contains more than 62,500 pieces of historical sheet music registered for copyright: more than 15,000 registered during the years 1820-1860 and more than 47,000 registered during the years 1870-1885. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. The collection documents the attitudes and tastes of a bygone era
Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music
The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music (JSCM) is published by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music to provide a refereed forum for scholarly studies of the musical cultures of the seventeenth century. These include historical and archival studies, performance practice, music theory, aesthetics, dance, and theater. JSCM also publishes critical reviews and summary listings of recently published books, scores, and electronic media.
The Classical Music Navigator
We have compiled information on important classical music composers and their works and arrayed these data in a fashion making it easier for the novice or casual listener to identify additional materials that are allied to his or her already-existing "points of familiarity."
Library of Congress - Performing Arts Encyclopedia
Explore music, theater, and dance at the Library of Congress

Fine Arts This link opens in a new window
Periodical database for students of drama, music, art history, and filmmaking.
Oxford Grove Music Online
Access through Lehman is unavailable at this time.
Please access via NYPL using the link below:
https://libguides.nypl.org/grove-music-online
You will need an NYPL card to access. Don't have one? Sign up by going to https://www.nypl.org/library-card/new
The authoritative resource for music research with over 57,000 articles written by over 6,000 scholars charting the diverse history, theory and cultures of music around the globe
Based on a work first published in 1879 and updated frequently, Grove has been in continuous publication for over a century and now publishes hundreds of new articles and article revisions each year

Academic Journal Databases

JSTOR
Used by millions for research, teaching, and learning. With more than a thousand academic journals and over 1 million images, letters, and other primary sources, JSTOR is one of the world's most trusted sources for academic content.
Project Muse
Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community. Since 1995 the MUSE journal collections have supported a wide array of research needs at academic, public, special, and school libraries worldwide.
Humanities Source
Humanities Source is a bibliographic database that cites articles from English-language periodicals, plus the full text of selected periodicals. Periodical coverage includes some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known but important specialized magazines.

Google Scholar
Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines, formats, and sources, including theses, books, abstracts, and articles. Google Scholar sorts articles weighing the fulltext of each article, author, publication in which article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides fulltext for over 7,000 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.
America: History & Life with Full Text
Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text
Guide to history of the world from 1450 to the present, this authoritative database provides indexing of more than 1,800 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955. Coverage extends to related disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, and sociology.

Databases at NYPL

Most of the music related databases available through the New York Public Library are only accessible at one of the research branches in the system. You can locate the research libraries at: http://www.nypl.org/locations

NYPL Music Databases

Some NYPL music databases of note:

Index to Printed Music: Collections & Series

The Index to Printed Music: Collections & Series is a tool for finding individual pieces of music printed in standard scholarly editions, as it indexes each individual piece in a collection. Music for specific performing forces is easily retrievable, thus offering detailed repertory for performers, conductors, and directors of ensembles.

International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text

Indexes over 350 and provides full text for nearly 100 international music periodicals from more than twenty countries, with over 50 of the publications indexed exclusively in IIMP. IIMP is both current and retrospective with over 30,000 records dating from 1996 to the present and other records dating as far back as 1874.

Music Index Online

The Music Index Online edition features over 1.4 million records. The searchable database is updated quarterly with about 100,000 new records added annually.

RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals: 1800-1950

An index of specialized music journals, daily newspapers, articles in literary periodicals, theatrical journals and magazines, as well as engravings and lithographs in the illustrated press.

Articles, Journals, Databases

"Find-It!" & ILLiad

Search results contain some articles that only have citations and abstracts. "FIND-IT!" generates a search on all subscription databases at Lehman to locate the FULL TEXT of these articles.

Using Find-It! & ILLiad to Locate Journal Articles