Music Quick Guide: Songs 

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To find materials owned by MIT, use Barton:

Barton Advanced Search

Shortcuts for Researching a Topic: Online and Print Resources

Finding Books and Articles

• Barton, the MIT Libraries’ online catalog
  
  The main call number section for books about the history of singing is ML1460; about choral music, ML1500-; opera, ML1700; musicals, ML2054. For specific topics, search by subject: Singing -- History; Vocal music -- History and criticism; etc.
  
  
• Music index.
  Ref ML118.M987 and available online (MIT only) at http://libraries.mit.edu/get/musicindex
  An index to music articles published in journals from 1949-1974 (print) and 1974-present (online).
  
  
• RILM (Répertoire International de la Littérature Musicale) Abstracts of music literature.
  Available online (MIT only) at http://libraries.mit.edu/get/rilm
  Contains abstracts of music research (articles, books, dissertations) from 1967 on. Over 500,000 citations.
  
  
• WorldCat. Web access (MIT only): http://libraries.mit.edu/get/worldcat
  Contains 1.2 billion library records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries, including books, scores, CDs, and videos/DVDs.
  
  
• Google Scholar.
  Includes scholarly literature at MIT and beyond.

Indexes to songs in collections
Songs in collections may not be listed in Barton; use indexes to locate these songs. Examples:

• Havlice, Patricia Pate. Popular song index.
  Ref ML128.S3.H4 & suppls. 1-4
  
  
• Popular music, 1920-1979: a revised cumulation / Nat Shapiro and Bruce Pollock, eds.
  Ref ML120.U5.S529 1985
  

Finding Music Scores

• For scores in the Lewis Music Library, use Barton Advanced Search and select "Scores" from the pulldown menu under "Formats/Types."
  
  
• For online Public Domain scores, see "Public Domain Music Scores"

Finding CDs and DVDs

For CDs and DVDs in the Lewis Music Library, use Barton Advanced Search and select CDs or DVDs from the pulldown menu under Formats/Types.

Streaming Audio

• American Song
  MIT only; includes over 57,000 tracks from 3,275 albums.
  
  
• Contemporary World Music
  MIT only; includes reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres.
  
  
• Database of Recorded American Music [DRAM]
  MIT only; over 9,800 compositions by American composers and artists from New World, CRI, and other important labels.
  
  
• Internet Archive
  A source for free digital recordings.
  
  
• Naxos Jazz
  MIT only; contains over 22,000 tracks from 2,300 albums representing 500 jazz artists.
  
  
• Naxos Music Library
  MIT only; more than 495,000 tracks of music, representing 34,700 CDs.

Online Resources

• Oxford Music Online (MIT only) includes:
  • Grove Music Online
  • Oxford Dictionary of Music
  • Oxford Companion to Music
    
    
• Music Online Resources
  Lewis Music Library's research guide for music.
  
  
• Sheet Music Collections
  From Duke University's Music Library
  
  
• Song Indexes
  Helpful list of song indexes, including both popular songs and art songs, from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University School of Music.
  
  
• Opera
  Sibelius Academy's listing of opera web sites.
  

• Music Lyrics in the Yahoo! Directory
  Extensive list of web sites for lyrics.
  
  
• Song Lyrics & Libretti
  From the William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University School of Music.
  
  
• Libretto Index by H. Weber
  Libretto pages arranged by composer and name of the opera.
  

Peter Munstedt
Lewis Music Librarian
pmunsted@mit.edu

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