LibGuides: Music quick guide: World Music: Home

Locate music books, recordings, scores, articles, & e-resources

Search Our Collections
Searches MIT collections and most MIT-licensed e-resources, including full-text articles.
Finding music materials in MIT "Search Our Collections"
Search tips for finding music materials in Search Our Collections.
"Search Our Collections" (MIT Libraries catalog)
To find specific materials owned by MIT.
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Bibliographies of the music of various countries and regions are found in the Lewis Music Library's Ref ML120 section, arranged alphabetically by country. Examples:

Africa: Ref ML120.A35
China: Ref ML120.C5
Latin America: Ref ML120.L357

Browse the shelves in the circulating collection for books on world music:

ML3600-ML3800
ML300-ML360

Find music journal articles (MIT access)

These sources may list articles not listed in Search Our Collections:

Music Index Online (journal articles)
Indexes music articles in journals 1970-present.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text (journal articles and more)
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text expands and enhances the unrivaled global bibliography of writings on music with content from 260 key periodicals published from the early 20th century to the present. It offers articles and reviews as well as obituaries, editorials, correspondence, advertisements, and news in full text, which can be searched and browsed for each issue, cover to cover. Each year new journals are being added to the full-text collection.
JSTOR Scholarly Journal Archive (full-text journal articles)
Research guide: Anthropology & archaeology

Online dictionaries and encyclopedias (MIT access)

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online
More than 9,000 pages of material and 300 audio recordings reflecting the music of every continent.
Oxford Music Online (includes Grove's Dictionary of Music)
Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Grove Music Online, Oxford Dictionary of Music, and Oxford Companion to Music.
Music Around the World: a Global Encyclopedia
With entries on topics ranging from non-Western instruments to distinctive rhythms of music from various countries, this one-stop resource on global music also promotes appreciation of other countries and cultural groups.

Streaming audio

Music and Performing Arts
Over 5 million tracks from Alexander Street Press: includes American Song, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, Jazz Music Library, and Smithsonian Global Sound
Naxos Music Library
Over two million tracks of music.
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
Over 2,000 hours of historic field recordings from around the world, alongside their supporting field notes and ethnographers’ metadata. Includes the following collections: southern and central Africa, Oceania, Central African Republic, South Asia, Afghanistan, American folk music/U.S.A. South Negro Folklore Collection

Streaming video

Kanopy
Streaming video service with documentary and feature films.
Naxos Video Library
Classical music performances, opera, ballet, live concerts, and documentaries.