LibGuides: Music: Finding books and articles

Finding Books and ebooks

There are several approaches to finding books on a music topic. In general, start by using the advanced search in UC Library Search, and limiting your search results to material type Books. If the list of search results is too long, select one of the more relevant items, scroll through most of the catalog record until you find the subject headings, then click on those.

You may also wish to use subject headings in your initial search. The subject headings include phrases such as "criticism and interpretation" that can be combined with a name in a keyword search:

Coltrane criticism interpretation

Similarly, subject heading terms such as "analysis and appreciation" can be combined with a genre term:

Brahms Symphonies analysis and appreciation

ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Oxford Music Online Icon
Access point for The Oxford Dictionary of Music, The Oxford Companion of Music, Grove Music Online, and others. See below for sources with more depth of coverage on American music and world music.

Grove Music Online Icon

Use this link to limit your search to Grove Music Online, the most significant English language music encyclopedia. Contains over 57,000 articles written by over 6,000 scholars.

Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition Icon
The largest reference publication on American Music (including Latin America), this second edition provides expanded coverage particularly in the areas of popular music, cities and regions, ethnic and cultural groups, and music technology.

Music Online: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Icon
Articles on ethnic and folk music worldwide, describing national and specific musical genres, practices, instruments, performances, and the cultural context.

Featured resource: Rolling Stone Archive

Rolling Stone Archive
The backfile from its launch in 1967 to the present. One of the most influential consumer magazines of the 20th-21st centuries, it initially sought to reflect the cultural, social, and political outlook of a generation of students and young adults. It has been a leading vehicle for rock and popular music journalism, as well as covering wider entertainment topics such as film and popular culture.

Music Databases

Entertainment industry magazine archive. Collection I, Music, radio and the stage
An archival research resource containing 17 trade and popular magazines covering all aspects of the music industry, theatre and broadcast radio in the US and UK covering the period 1880-2000
International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP)
Full texts of articles in a range of music journals and magazines. Now known as Music Periodicals Database.
Music Index Online
Subject-author guide to music periodical literature...the editor/librarians have surveyed data from more than 850 music periodicals from over 40 countries. Indexes international music periodicals which cover every aspect of the classical and popular world of music. A broad range of subjects are indexed, covering musicological or organological topics, plus book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries
Music Periodicals Database
This database provides indexing and abstracts for several hundred international music periodicals from over 20 countries, plus full text for more than 140 of the indexed journals. The majority of the records in the database are from the most recent ten years of publication. Some complete journal runs are included, with indexing back to 1874. Covers the full spectrum of subjects and all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition
Performing Arts Periodicals Database
An index to over 395 journal titles – over 160 of which are available in full text - in the fields of dance, drama, film, theater, opera, puppetry, circus, and other forms of performance art.
RILM abstracts of musical literature
An international scope and focus on scholarly publications. Coverage is 1967 to date for the current database and the early 1800s for a combination of RILM and RILM Retro.
Rock's Backpages
Thousands of articles from underground magazines such as Punk, Creem, and Mojo, also from more mainstream titles such as Melody Maker, Spin and Rolling Stone. Includes some reviews and audio interviews.

Multidisciplinary databases

Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary database with 17,800+ journals and magazines, of which 16,000+ are peer-reviewed and 8,750+ are full-text. Also included are books, conference papers and proceedings, government documents, newspapers, video content, and more. Coverage begins in 1887, with material in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Google Scholar
Search for scholarly publications across disciplines & sources: articles, theses/dissertations, books, and more, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities etc. Use Scholar Settings-->Library Links option to setup "University of California, San Diego - Get it at UC" and if you are searching from off campus, log in to the VPN to get full access to UC San Diego subscribed article content.
JSTOR
Search by subject or browse 2,600+ full-text titles, predominantly scholarly journals and books in social sciences, history, humanities, and science and mathematics, to their earliest issues. Many titles extend as far back as late 19th or early 20th centuries; most recent 3-5 years often not included. JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Project Muse: Scholarly Journals and Books Online
Search by subject or browse full text scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences and mathematics. More than 700 journals from over 250 university presses and scholarly publishers are available. Coverage begins 1906 or later, depending on the publication. UCSD also has access to over 30,000 book titles.

Other Resources

Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin
ISBN: 9780195169799
Publication Date: 2005
Sweepingly ambitious, The Oxford History of Western Music will illuminate, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age. Taking a critical perspective that challenges the received wisdom of the field,Richard Taruskin sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history.Written by an authoritative, opinionated, and controversial figure in musicology, The Oxford History of Western Music provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works, a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis onstructure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the context of each stylistic period-key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientificevents-influenced and directed compositional choices. Unlike earlier surveys, Taruskin provides greater attention to the full range of 20th century music, including American music as part of the mainstream tradition of western music, women in music, and popular musics.