Music Resources: A TexShare Pathfinder
TexShare does not carry any databases specifically dedicated to the field of music. However, there are several databases carrying large amounts of music-related articles, books, and other information. This pathfinder will describe some musical information one can find on TexShare databases.
DATABASES WITH MUSICAL MATERIALS
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier is a vast general database covering over 3,000 publications. Examples of music information from ASP include articles and reviews from publications like American Record Guide, as well as scholarly journals such as Early Music, American Music, and Music Theory Spectrum.
For example, here is a snapshot of an article by Poundie Burstein about Schenkerian analysis from Music Theory Spectrum:
Master FILE Premier
Master File Premier, another database produced by EBSCO, contains a similar array of information as Academic Search Premier.
Student Resource Center Gold
This database is designed for high school students, and has an interface designed to be usable by young adults. SRC Gold contains a limited amount of information geared towards assisting high schoolers with assignments.
The Multimedia Gallery allows users to search from 371 audio clips:
Among these, there are only a handful of pieces of music, including “Dixie,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “Hark, All Ye Lovely Saints,” to name only the most well-known examples. Most songs in SRC Gold are named as follows: “Song:[Title].” Because the music excerpts on SRC Gold are so few and distinct from each other, the patron is unlikely to be served by this database unless it meets a pre-defined need.
OCLC WorldCat
WorldCat allows the patron to find nearly any item they are looking for, and whether it is available at their library. A search of the WorldCat database can be limited by media, allowing patrons to search for musical recordings and musical scores:
NetLibrary
NetLibrary offers full-text access to a number of scholarly volumes in music, among other disciplines. Among the items available from NetLibrary include numerous music dictionaries and encyclopedias, and monographs on such distinct topics as music theory, musicology, ethnomusicology (study of non-Western music), and music therapy.
ADDITIONAL MUSIC RESOURCES
Some music resources outside of TexShare include:
AllMusic.com, AllClassical.com
Allmusic and its sister site Allclassical are freely available databases that provide information such as artist biographies, lists of works and recordings, reviews of recordings, giving thorough but relatively brief analyses. This is a great place to start in a search for information about a particular musician or recording.
Music Research DatabasesCompiled by the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at Indiana University, this is an exhaustive list of freely available music databases. Note that some links are now broken.
Musica International Database of Choral MusicFree to use after registration, this site contains “a virtual library of 145,000 pieces of choral music, with comprehensive descriptions and multimedia links, and information on 26,500 composers.”
Grove Concise Dictionary of MusicCurrently served on a classical radio station web site, this free dictionary provides brief definitions of musical and musicological terms, and is for the typical user a worthy substitute for the more thorough, but subscription-based, Grove Music Online (www.grovemusic.com).
This page was written by John Reid in Spring 2006.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information,
The University of Texas at Austin