Research Guides: Visual Arts & Music Research: Music & Technology

Databases

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Premier is a large database that covers more than 8,000 journals, 85% of which are peer-reviewed and over 55% are full text, and full text for nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. It covers a wide variety of disciplines.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR, a scholarly database, provides access to scholarly journal articles on the arts, sciences, social sciences, management, mathematics, and statistics, as well as images and primary sources. As JSTOR is an archival database, full-text availability of most journals starts from their first year of publication, while more recently published journal content is available after an embargo period.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central provides access to a vast array of scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers from all over the world through databases including News & Newspapers, ABI/INFORM, Ebook Central, and many more. Recommended for all subjects.
Stevens Theses and Dissertations Online This link opens in a new window
Stevens Theses and Dissertations Online contains dissertations and theses produced by students at Stevens Institute of Technology through the ProQuest database. Dissertations: 1955 - present. Master’s theses: 2017 - present.

Useful Tools

"Musical Criticism" in the Encyclopedia Britannica
Explanation and history of the art of writing about music.
A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1450-1889), George Grove
A 4-vol. work published in 1900, available in the Internet Archive.
International Music Score Library Project - Petrucci Music Library
A wide and varied wiki of music scores and MIDI recordings of music in the public domain (after the period of copyright has expired) of Canada, the US, and the EU. While the point at which works enter the public domain is different for Canada, the US and the EU, there is enough overlap that there's plenty to explore, by composer, performer, or work.
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The performing-arts research library of the NYPL is located next to Lincoln Center and includes some of the best research collections available on music, dance, theater, and more.
Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA is a portal into the collections of libraries, museums, and archives around the country, providing direct access to the digital records of millions of items.
All Music Guide
A commercial site that offers some value as a database of song and album information. Useful when assembling citation information (or if you'd like to know what albums can be thought of as, say, "Autumnal").
Library of Congress: Arts & Culture
The many and varied collections held by the Library of Congress, the country's collective memory.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive
Housed at the Internet Archive, the Ethnomusicology Archive from UCLA contains more than 150,000 audio, video, print and photographic items about musical traditions around the world, going back as far as 1961.

For more information...

Song Means [ebook] by Allan F. Moore
Call Number: MT146 .M66 2012 EB
ISBN: 9781409428657
Publication Date: 2012-03-01
What to Listen for in Rock [ebook] by Ken Stephenson
Call Number: MT146 .S74 2002 EB
ISBN: 9780300128239
Publication Date: 2002-08-01
Reading Song Lyrics [ebook] by Lars Eckstein
Call Number: MT67 .E35 2010 EB
ISBN: 9789042030367
Publication Date: 2010

Citing Musical Works

Musical works are cited in different ways depending on their medium. Sound recordings are different from sheet music which is different from .mp3 files, so it's important to be specific when you cite a work you have used.

MLA (Purdue OWL; includes sound recordings, spoken word albums, and digital files)
APA

Recorded music (APA Style blog)
Musical score (APA Style blog)
YouTube video (APA Style blog)

Chicago/Turabian (Florida International University; includes sound and video recordings, scores, and live performances)

Visual Arts & Music Research

Databases

Useful Tools

For more information...

Citing Musical Works

Find

Research Help

Services

Contact Us