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Music: Databases and indexes

Selected resources for students of music

Databases

Databases on this page relate to music and are also listed on the Library's A-Z Databases.
Use databases to find journal articles, including peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Use Sound databases to listen to streamed music.

Not all databases will contain the full text of articles. You need to check the library Search to see if the library holds the particular journal you require.

Databases which are essential indexes to articles published in music journals

Proquest and RILM Abstracts are more than indexes to journal literature. These databases offer access to full text articles and ebooks.
Watch a video on the many features of RILM Abstracts here.

Further databases for locating music sources

Australian resources

Streamed Video

Digital Concert Hall
Watch concerts, master classes and interviews.
First time users, register first on campus at URL https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/register

Medici TV
Concerts, master classes, documentaries and interviews from the 1950s to 2018:

Four pianists on one piano
More streamed video below.

Sound recordings (streamed audio)

Freely available Sound Archives (selection) :

Sources for all regions from every continent

The following databases offer sources which you can search using keywords : hip-hop and gansgstareggae and Jamaica or samba and Brazil. There will also be sources on topics such as the Eurovision Song Contest and the pop music of East AsiaIndiaIranSouth Africa and West Africa

Bloomsbury Popular Music is a database containing in-depth analysis of popular music in a global context. You can search with keywords to find sources for the essay topics and the Expo.

Contemporary World Music contains streamed sound tracks and online liner notes which offer different perspectives on your topics. You can search by Place or Genre and browse by performer or ensemble.
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Smithsonian World Music is a a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. There are over 35,000 individual tracks of music and online liner notes which you can browse or search using controlled vocabularies or keywords to find musical instruments, geographic areas, cultural groups and genres.
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Newspapers

Digital replicas (including images, graphs and the full content) of the following 3 newspapers:
 Australian Financial Review (last 3 years)
The Age (last 6 months)
The Sydney Morning Herald (last 6 months)

 

Online scores

For contemporary scores:

Comparison of Music Databases

Use Ulrichsweb to check whether your source is academic and scholarly

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Refereed

Academic

This database allows users to check whether their source is from a peer reviewed journal. An authoritative source of bibliographic and publisher information from periodicals of all types - academic and scholarly journals, Open Access publications, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers ands newsletters.
 

Jazz streamed audiovisual

More Streamed video

Primary sources

Databases for Music Theses

Special databases

Theses

For more information:

Film music

Streamed world music on CD