Library Guides: Global Societies and Cultures: Global Music

Music Literature Indexes

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (1967-present) provides broad, international coverage of scholarly writing on music, including periodical articles, books, essays in collections, dissertations, videos, conference proceedings, dissertations, ethnographic recordings, reviews and more. Comprehensive coverage includes music-related articles published in conference proceedings from 1835 through 1966; articles in Festschriften celebrating music scholars from 1840 to 1966; and articles in anniversary volumes published in honor of musicians, composers and institutions dating back to the 18th century.More recent citations do not include abstracts. Available in printed form in the Reading Room at ML1.R14. Updated monthly. UC access only. lock icon; access restricted to UC Berkeley

Music Index Online covers more than 650 international music journals, primarily English language sources. Citations, covering from 1979 to the present, do not include an abstract. Updated quarterly. Available in printed form, covering 1949 to the present, in the Reading Room at ML13.M7. UCB access only.

Music Periodicals Database. Formerly known as IIMP, Music Database covers a broad cross-section of music periodical sources, from the most scholarly studies to the latest trends, including classical music, pop and popular music, rock, rap and hip-hop, blues, jazz, traditional and folk music, world music, music equipment and technology, recording techniques and technology, and the music, radio, and music video industries. Indexes more than 380 music periodicals (50 in full-text) from over 20 countries, including feature music articles and obituaries appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post. List of periodicals indexed. Retrospective indexing for more than 165 titles, but without subject access or abstracts. Indexing for some periodicals begins with 1990. Entries from 1996 forward include an abstract. Updated quarterly. UC access only.

Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals. RIPM indexes selected music journals published 1800-1950 in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the US. It Offers a cumulative index to chronologies and authors appearing in over 65 volumes of the print version. The online archive contains 70 full-text, full-image periodicals, with new titles added every six months. Over 190 printed volumes, many indexed, are published in the RIPM series, available on the Reading Room at ML128.P24 T4 1993. Updated semiannually. UC access only.

JSTOR. The Music Collection in JSTOR (Journal Storage: The Scholarly Journal Archive) contains the complete back runs of 32 titles dedicated to scholarly research and theory in the field of music, including journals published in the Netherlands, Croatia, Hungary, Germany and France. Back runs end at a so-called "moving wall," representing the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal. The "moving wall" is specified by publishers in their license agreements with JSTOR, and generally ranges from 3 and 5 years. UC access only.

Project Muse.

Performing Arts Database. Formerly known as IIPA full text, Performing Arts Database draws its content from more than 210 scholarly and popular performing arts periodicals, and also indexes a variety of documents such as biographical profiles, conference papers, obituaries, interviews, discographies, reviews and events. The database covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry, including dance, film, television, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, broadcast arts, circus performance, comedy, storytelling, opera, pantomime, puppetry, and magic. Every IIPA full text record in the current file (1998 forward) contains an abstract. UC access only.

Streaming Audio & Video Collections

The streaming databases listed below are available to the UC Berkeley community by subscription. Remote or off-campus access is restricted to UCB students, faculty, and staff.

Classical Performance in Video This link opens in a new window
Streaming video of 1,600 performances of classical music repertoire, including over 200 operas, 75 dance works, and 250 documentaries. Synchronized transcripts—such as translations of opera texts—run alongside most titles.
Classical Performance in Video contains 2,000 full length titles from music publishers and performing houses like C Major Entertainment, EuroArts, Opus Arte, Arthaus Musik, CLC Productions, and the BBC. Content includes over 1,600 performances in video, including 200 full operas and 75 dance titles; over 60 master classes; over 250 full-length documentaries; over 50 full length interviews; and musical scores to accompany over 100 of the most studied works. More than 250 new titles are added to Classical Performance in Video per year.
Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) This link opens in a new window
Audio files of compositions of classical music, folk music, opera, jazz, country music, early rhythm and blues, musical theater, experimental music, electronic music, early rock and Native American music from the United States. Complete original liner notes and essays from independent record labels and sound archives.
Contains audio files of over 1200 CDs, featuring 7500 compositions of classical music, folk music, opera, jazz, country music, early rhythm and blues, musical theater, experimental music, electronic music, early rock and Native American music from the United States. This broad spectrum of American music is derived from recordings available on the New World Records label, and works of contemporary classical American music from labels such as CRI, Albany, innova, Cedille, XI, Pogus, Deep Listening, and Mutable. QuickTime 6.5.2 or later required.
Medici.tv This link opens in a new window
Classical music videos live and on-demand.
Since its official launch in May 2008, www.medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of music and arts lovers. Building on the success of webcasts from the Verbier Festival in 2007, www.medici.tv has since offered high-definition webcasts from many other leading festivals, including Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Denis, Aspen, Glyndebourne, and Lucerne, as well as from such music venues as the Opera National de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and Milan's famed La Scala. Many operas, ballets, and concerts performed by the world's top-flight artists and orchestras have been webcast both as live events and later as video-on-demand (VOD).
Naxos Music Library (NML) This link opens in a new window
Collection of Western classical music including classical music, jazz, world, folk and Chinese music. Includes notes and biographical information on composers and artists.
A collection of Western classical music including the complete Naxos and Marco Polo catalogs of over 170,000 tracks. Includes classical music, jazz, world, folk and Chinese music. Includes notes and biographical information on composers and artists.
Naxos Music Library Jazz This link opens in a new window
Provides an expanding, mixed selection of streamed recordings by artists from jazz legends to contemporary jazz on hundreds of labels, including Blue Note Records, Warner, EMI, and Fantasy. (Naxos Fantasy Jazz)
Offers close to 20,000 tracks of jazz from 1,900 albums. Over 500 jazz artist are represented.

NB. When you finish using Naxos Music Library and Naxos Jazz please click the LOGOUT button at the upper right corner of the screen. This will help allow access for another UCB listener.

Music and Performing Arts Online, a cross-search (combined search) of several streaming audio databases by Alexander Street Press available at UC Berkeley, includes the following components:

Music Online: American Music This link opens in a new window
Hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about Native Americans, miners, immigrants, enslaved people, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and anti-war protests.
Formerly known as African American Song, or American Song. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music Online.
Classical Music Library This link opens in a new window
Collection includes recordings from the world's greatest labels. Coverage includes music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers. Repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.
"A database of classical music recordings containing more than 50,000 tracks cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Over 32 labels are represented. Recordings include early written music (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to contemporary composers. All genres are represented including vocal and choral music, chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental and opera. The database provides multiple recordings of major works.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new window
A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.
Includes approximately 35,000 tracks of world music and sound recordings from the archives of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Categories include American folk, blues, bluegrass, and jazz. Music Online.

Contemporary World Music
Contemporary World Music delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database will contain important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. protests, and more. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online brings together 2,000 hours of audio recordings from field expeditions around the world, particularly from the 1960s through the 1980s—the dawn of ethnomusicology as a codified discipline. Building on their predecessors’ early sound collecting methods, ethnomusicologists began to fill in gaps on the world music map, traveling to field sites to record and document music in its broader cultural context. These collectors’ bodies of work contain some of the most comprehensive surveys of regional music on record, including Mark Slobin’s survey of Afghan music, Nazir Jairazbhoy’s survey of classical Indian music, and Hugh Tracey’s survey of southern and central African music. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online

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Bibliothèque nationale de France, Catalogues
Union Catalog of France/Catalogue Collectif de France, CCFr
British Library, Catalogues
Copac, 80 UK and Irish Institutions
Gabriel, Gateway to European National Libraries
Italian National Library Service (ICCU/SBN)
Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, KVK

Wikipedia, National and State Libraries

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Global Societies and Cultures: Global Music

Music Literature Indexes

Streaming Audio & Video Collections

Music Librarian

International