Music

Music guide (Multnomah County Library)
Music Copyright
Careers
Choral music
Composers
Events & Festivals
Film music
Folk music
Jazz & Blues
Music History

Music Reference: Directories
Music Reference: Publishers
Music Theory
Musical instruments
Popular music
Radio/podcasts
Song indexes
World music

Databases

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Academic Search Premier

Full text for nearly 1,560 academic, social sciences, humanities, science, education and multi-cultural journals. Contains full text articles from leading music journals, such as Contemporary Music Review, Musical times and Teaching Music

Ethnic NewsWatch

Newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic minority and native press. Keep up with the local music scenes around the country.

Freegal Music

A downloadable music service with access to the Sony Music Entertainment catalog, which offers hundreds of thousands of songs, more than 100 genres of music, and more than 50 record labels. See also: Freegal FAQs

Humanities Abstracts

A database that cites articles from English-language periodicals, covering the arts, film, gender studies, history, language, literature and religion. Indexes a number of music journals, such as Black Music Research Journal, Folk Music Journal and more.

MasterFILE Premier

Full text for over 1,890 general reference, business, consumer health, general science, and multi-cultural periodicals. Find full text articles from Rolling Stone, Electronic Music, or Entertainment Weekly.

Music Index

An index of popular and classical music articles in periodicals going back to 1976 and in some cases 1964.

Music Online from Alexander St. Press

Listen to streams of world music, folk music, African-American and classical music.

Oxford Music Online

Full text online equivalent for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, with the full text of Jazz Grove II beginning August 2002.

Readers' Guide Retrospective

Comprehensive indexing of the more than 500 popular general-interest magazines published in the United States reflecting the history of 20th century America. This is a great resource when looking for old music reviews.

Music Guide

Music Guide: http://www.multcolib.org/guides/musicguide/

A music-oriented guide to searching the Multnomah County Library catalog.

Copyright & Music Publishers

Music Copyright Guide: http://www.multcolib.org/guides/copyright/

Multnomah County Library music copyright guide: Information about music copyright, how to copyright music and use copyrighted works; includes a bibliography of books in the library, a directory of publishers, music rental sources, and more.
Library of Congress Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/

Use this site to register a copyright for your music online. See the guide Copyright Basics for a clear explanation of the essentials of copyright law.
Public Domain Chart: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

How to know when music is in the public domain.

Careers

Careers in Music: http://www.berklee.edu/careers/

Excellent site by the Berklee School of Music about career options in the music industry. Includes job descriptions, interviews, book suggestions and helpful links.

Choral music

Aria Database: http://www.aria-database.com/

Search for arias by title words, composer, operatic role, or name of the opera. Includes translations and aria texts of most arias, plus sound files.
ChoralNet: http://www.choralnet.org/

Comprehensive reference for choral music, for locating scores, publishers, recordings, and other information.

Composers

Classical Composers Database: http://www.classical-composers.org

Website dedicated to providing information about composers.
Classical Music Composers List: http://library.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/composer.html

Alphabetical list of composers, organized by the Indiana University School of Music.
Women Composers Database: http://www.kapralova.org/DATABASE.htm

Search by name of composer for biographical information. This site also includes lists of recordings.

Events and Festivals

Music in Oregon: http://libweb.uoregon.edu/music/musor.html

Festivals, concerts, organizations, and other links for Oregon music.
Oregon Music News: http://oregonmusicnews.com

Local music news magazine, featuring a local calendar of events for all types of music, interviews, local music venues.
OregonLive Music Events Calendar: http://www.oregonlive.com/music/

The Oregonian website list of local music events, updated daily; search by name of concert or type of music.
Willamette Week: Music: http://www.wweek.com/portland/flex-202-music.html

The current week of music events and reviews.
Pollstar: Concert Hotwire: http://www.pollstar.com/

Touring schedules for popular music; search by artist, city, and venue.

Film music

Classical music used in films: http://www.naxos.com/musicinmovies.asp?letter=A

A useful list organized by film title, linking to sound files and CD information.
IMDB - Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/

Search for films and scroll down to the "Did You Know?" section to find soundtrack information.

Folk music

Folk Music Index: http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex/

Locally produced, an extensive index of folk music recordings, books and scores.

Jazz & Blues

Cascade Blues Association: http://www.cascadeblues.org/joomla/

The Cascade Blues Association is a local non-profit association;
KMHD Jazz Radio Station from Mt. Hood Community College: http://www.kmhd.org/

Licensed to Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham and operated by Oregon Public Broadcasting, the KMHD website lists program schedules, playlists, and more.
Portland Jazz Festival: http://pdxjazz.com/home.php

Program and events for the Feb. 21-28, 2010 festival.
Jazz Society of Oregon: http://www.jsojazzscene.org/

Articles about local clubs, musicians, and events, plus reviews of jazz recordings, a calendar and information about Jazz Society activities.
All About Jazz: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/

Online jazz magazine: cd reviews, articles about jazz, videos, and audio.
The Blues Foundation: http://www.blues.org/

This foundation sponsors blues events, hosts an online blues radio show, and features current events and information about blues music and musicians. This site also includes a history of women blues musicians.
DownBeat Magazine: http://www.downbeat.com/

The online version of the leading jazz publication offers artist biographies, music reviews, and more.
The Red Hot Jazz Archive: A History of Jazz before 1930: http://www.redhotjazz.com/

Biography, photographs, and recordings of jazz musicians.

Music history

Musical Borrowing: An Annotated Bibliography: http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/borrowing/

A listing of the reworking of one or more particular musical works in new compositions, both classical and popular music.
Musical Instrument Terminology: http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/instname.htm

The names of musical instruments and voices in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
NPR 100: http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html

Based upon votes by NPR audiences, the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, from a wide variety of genres -- classical, jazz, rock'n'roll, country, R&B, musical theatre and film scores. Audio files and related NPR stories.
Pulitzer Prize in Music 1943-2001: http://www1.american.edu/heintze/Pul1.htm

List of past winners and historical background of the Pulizer Prize.
The Symphony Orchestra: http://library.thinkquest.org/22673/orchestra.html

Chart layout of the arrangement of the modern symphonic orchestra, linking to short essays about each instrument, with illustrations and sound files.

Music Reference: Directories

Early String Instrument Businesses: http://earlymusichicago.org/businesses_strings.htm

Excellent list from Early Music Chicago for stringed instrument sources and accessories.

Music Reference: Publishers

Music Publishers Association: Music Scores: http://mpa.org/directories/music_publishers/

An alphabetical directory of contact information for publishers, both domestic and foreign, plus copyright administrating offices.
Directory of Publisher Imprints: Music Scores: http://mpa.org/directories/publisher_imprints/

An alphabetical directory of music publications sold through larger publishers or distributors. This directory is useful for contact information for publishers that are no longer active.

Music Theory

Encyclopedia of Microtonal Music Theory: http://tonalsoft.com/enc/encyclopedia.aspx

A-Z index of music theory terms and concepts.
Interactive Circle of Fifths: http://randscullard.com/CircleOfFifths/

The Interactive Circle of Fifths is a tool designed to help musicians figure out the key of a piece of music, easily transpose music to a different key, compose new music, and understand key signatures, scales, and modes.
Introduction to Reading Music: http://datadragon.com/education/reading/

Clearly written and useful guide for learning how to read music. For more on this subject see: How to read music : the fundamentals of music notation made easy, by Roger Evans ( 780.148 E92h 1978 ) and other books at Multnomah County Library.
Key signature terms in French, German, Italian, and Spanish: http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/keylang.htm

A useful chart for translations.
Music Staff Paper: http://people.virginia.edu/~pdr4h/musicpaper/

Print out blank staff paper based upon combinations of instruments, vocal/piano, or solo piano.
Musical Intervals Tutor: http://www.musicalintervalstutor.com/

The Musical Intervals Tutor is a study aid to help you learn the sounds of the basic music intervals from minor second to perfect octave.
Musictheory.net: http://www.musictheory.net/

Flash-based piano tutorials for learning about music theory with quizzes for scales, chords and other terms.

Musical instruments

Musical Instruments Electronic Picture Gallery: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/ucjl.html#ucjm

The Edinburgh University Collection of historic musical instruments, including folk instruments worldwide.
Musical Heritage Network: Instrument Encyclopedia: http://www.music.umich.edu/research/stearns_collection/index.htm

Short essays with photographs and bibliographies.
Musical Instrument Museum: http://www.usd.edu/smm/

The National Music Museum, at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, includes more than 13,500 American, European, and non-Western instruments from virtually all cultures and historical periods. This site is particularly good for photographs of many examples of musical instruments.
The Sounds of the Orchestra: http://www.concertgoersguide.org/onstage/audios.php

Listen to the sounds of the symphony orchestra: musical samples played by musicians of the Oregon Symphony. Select the names of the musical instruments to hear the audio files.

Operas & musicals

Musical Cast Album Database: http://www.castalbumdb.com/

Online index of musicals; search by musical titles, composers, lyricists, book authors, artists, conductors and songs. Over 20,000 songs listed. Includes record album covers when available and song track listings.
Northwest Opera Schedules: http://www.scn.org/arts/nwopera/

Schedules for opera companies in the Northwest.
Operabase: http://www.operabase.com/

International site for opera schedules and reviews; touring schedules for singers; historical background of composers and works.
OperaGlass: http://operetta.stanford.edu/main.html

Opera plot summaries, performance notes, discographies, and reviews.
Opera Net: http://www.culturekiosque.com/opera/

Opera reviews are featured in this online journal.

Popular music

allmusic.com: http://www.allmusic.com

A music encyclopedia; use to identify musicians and recordings for specific types of music.
Billboard.com: http://www.billboard.com/

Online version of Billboard magazine: popular music news, previews/reviews of new CDs, album charts, rankings for music-related activity on the internet, including sales, downloads, webcasts, and more.
Harmony Central: http://www.harmonycentral.com/index.jspa

For rock music: guitar tablature, musical instruments, and other information.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://rockhall.com/

The Cleveland Museum site with online exhibits on the history of Rock and Roll.

Radio/podcasts

Podbop: http://podbop.org/cities/us/or/portland

Podbop is an MP3 concert calendar that helps you discover bands playing in your town
Creative Commons Music Podcast Directory: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Music_Podcasts

A list of music podcasts featuring exclusively CC licensed music.
BBC Radio 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

Explore BBC radio selections of music; subscribe to the BBC R3 newsletter and send comments to the message board.
Pandora: http://www.pandora.com

Type the name of a group or musician you like to find others that are similar in style; created by the Music Genome Project
PublicRadioFan.com: http://www.publicradiofan.com/

PublicRadioFan.com features program listings for hundreds of public radio stations around the world. Follow the audio links to hear your favorite programs and discover new ones. Search for what's on right now, podcast directories, type of music, and other categories.

Song indexes

ASCAP ACE Song Database: American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers: http://www.ascap.com/ace/

Search ASCAP's song database by title, writer, performer, or publisher. Both ASCAP and BMI list contact information for publishers for permissions/licensing of recordings.
BMI: Broadcast Music: http://www.bmi.com/

Search by song title or song writer, with writer and publisher information for songs licensed by BMI.

World music

African Music Encyclopedia: http://africanmusic.org/

Contemporary African musicians and music guide.
African Musicians Profiles: http://www.africanmusiciansprofiles.com/

Profiles of musicians, sources for books, recordings and tour information.
Ceolas: Celtic Music on the Internet: http://www.ceolas.org/ceolas.html

Celtic music in the US and Canada. Tunes & songs online, instrument links, books, music festivals and concert schedules.
Ethnic and National Music: http://library.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/ethnic.html

Indiana University Library's extensive site for international music.
festivals.com: http://www.festivals.com/

International music festival guide; search by title or location.
Global Rhythm: http://www.globalrhythm.net/

An online magazine featuring world music festivals, concerts, world music downloads plus music reviews from Africa, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
Latin American Network Information Center: Music: http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/music/

Sources for Latin American music information, organized by country.
Rootsworld: http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/

An online magazine of world music CD reviews, interviews, and music files; search by name of musical group, instrument, and country of origin.
World Music Central: http://worldmusiccentral.org/

World music news, reviews, articles and events calendar. Resources for fans, industry professionals and researchers.

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