Music Quick Guide: Music of the United States 

• Research Guide: Music
  
  
• Lewis Music Library FAQ
  
  
• Writing a Music Paper
  
  
• Quick Guides:
  
  
  • Classical Music
  
  
  • Electronic Music
  
  
  • Jazz
  
  
  • Music of the United States
  
  
  • Musical Theater
  
  
  • Piano Music
    
  
  
  • Pop and Rock Music
  
  
  • Songs
  
  
  • World Music

To find materials owned by MIT, use Barton:

Barton Advanced Search

Shortcuts for Researching a Topic: Online and Print Resources

Finding Books and Articles
(also see the Reference Books and CDs and DVDs tabs above)

• Barton, the MIT Libraries’ online catalog
  
  
  • To find books in Barton, change the keyword search box to Subject begins with... and enter Music - United States or Music - United States - History and Criticism.
  • Main call number section for books on the history of American music: ML200
  • Related works: ML200.4 (19th century); ML200.5 (20th century); ML200.8 (specific U.S. city), etc.
    
    
• Music index.
  Ref ML118.M987 and online (MIT only)
  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. (MIT only)
  Contains abstracts of music research (articles, books, dissertations) from 1967 on.
  
  
• WorldCat (MIT only)
  Contains over one 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.

To broaden your music search, use Vera Multi-Search

Finding Full-text Journal Articles

• To get the articles found in indexes, click the button in the citation

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. Enter a composer or major performer as Author Words; enter a genre (blues, hip-hop, etc.) as Subject Words.

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
  The research guide for music.
  
  
• American Music on the World Wide Web
  Meta-site maintained by the Society for American Music.
  
  
• Music for the Nation
  From the Library of Congress.
  

• Sheet Music Collections
  From Duke University's Music Library.
  
  
• American Music Center
  Provides access to the Center's library, American music news, and links to related sites.
  
  
• American Music Resource (AMR)
  Information about all styles of music indigenous to the Western Hemisphere.
  
  

Peter Munstedt
Lewis Music Librarian
pmunsted@mit.edu

Ask Us! if you have questions

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• Suggest a purchase (MIT only)
  
  
• Interlibrary borrowing (MIT only)