Library: Music Research Guide: Music Databases

What is an Article Resource?

Most of these resources are article databases - huge collections of articles from journals, magazines, and other publications that have been digitized and linked in a searchable database. When you search a database, your results list will include links to PDF or HTML version of articles that have been previously published.

However, sometimes your results will only provide information ABOUT an article, rather than the article itself. RILM is an index that has very few full-text articles. However, you can search RILM to find out about articles on your topic, and then look for those articles in other sources.

Grove Online is actually a multi-volume set of reference books that has been digitized for easy access. The "articles" in Grove's are really encyclopedia or dictionary entries. Still, Grove's is usually the best place to start your music research!

Article Resources for Music Students

Use the links below to choose the best article resources for your project.

19th Century Music

19th Century Music This link opens in a new window
Covering all aspects of Western art music between the mid-18th and mid-20th centuries, including composers and compositions, styles, performance, historical and cultural formations, and critical methods, this journal is at the leading edge of musical and multidisciplinary scholarship.

Academic Search Complete

EBSCO Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window The world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary database containing full-text for more than 8,500 publications in a user-friendly format with many helpful special features.

Fine Arts & Music

Fine Arts & Music This link opens in a new window This collection of 200 full-text periodicals provides broad coverage of the arts, including music and music theory, drama and the performing arts, and the visual arts and art history.

Grove Music Online

Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window Offers users the opportunity to access and cross-search Oxford’s music reference resources, including the Oxford Dictionary of Music, the Oxford Companion to Music, and the New Grove Dictionaries of Music and Musicians, Opera, and Jazz.

Get direct access to Oxford Music Online! Type your search term here:

Humanities Full Text

Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window Provides feature articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, and original works of fiction, drama, poetry and book reviews, as well as reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, radio and television programs, plays, operas, and more.

Journal of the American Musicological Society

Journal of the American Musicological Society This link opens in a new window
Recognized for the breadth of its intellectual scope, JAMS publishes scholarship from a broad array of musical inquiry, including historical musicology, critical theory, music analysis, pedagogy, performance practice, ethnomusicology, popular music, and cultural studies.

JSTOR

JSTOR This link opens in a new window JSTOR's trusted digital archive of over one thousand academic journals and other scholarly items provides a wide range of content in more than 50 disciplines.