Research Guides: Ethnomusicology, World Music, and Folk Music Guide: Find Articles

Area Studies & Cultural Groups

Emory has research guides for African-American Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Jewish Studies, and many more fields. Use these to identify article databases pertinent to your interdisciplinary topic.

Best Music Subject Periodical Databases

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Access resources for scholarly music research. Includes a continuously-updated bibliography of music literature with broad international coverage.
Music Index This link opens in a new window
Index to periodical articles on music. Coverage is international in scope and includes music of all periods and genres, musical instruments, composers, performers, the music industry, and other music-related topics.
Music Periodicals Database (formerly IIMP) This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts for many international music periodicals from a variety of countries. Some of the indexed journals are available in full-text.

Specialized Databases

Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
Contains bibliographic indexes pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide. Particular emphasis on the humanities and social sciences.
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America This link opens in a new window
Access an index of published literature about native peoples of North America. Includes books, journal literature, conference papers, and U.S. & Canadian government documents.
Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Covers journal articles, edited books, and essays in anthropology, archeology, and related interdisciplinary research.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations and conference papers in sociology and related disciplines.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Contains U. S. newspapers, magazines, and journals of ethnic, minority, and native presses. Searchable in English and Spanish, materials span from 1960 to the present.

Multidisciplinary Periodical Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts for thousands of journals and other publications. Access broad ranging resources that include full-text journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and video content from the Associate Press etc.
Access broad ranging resources that include full-text journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and video content from the Associated Press, etc.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical materials on literature, criticism, drama, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Coverage includes journals, series, essay collections, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings, and other materials. Produced by the Modern Language Association.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search for books and articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, pre-print repositories and universities, and more. To add a "Find It @ Emory" button, go to Library Links in the Settings menu, search for Emory, and click the "Find It @ Emory" box. NOTE: Unlike a library database, many sources found in Google Scholar require payment before providing full text; check library holdings of journal titles in Library Search or Interlibrary Loan before paying.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Access a wide variety of journal articles in the humanities and other disciplines.
Note: You may not be able to access the most current 2–7 years of certain journals—but many of these recent publications are found in Project MUSE.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Includes the most recently published output of many major scholarly journals. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, cultural studies, education, political science, and more.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (A&I) This link opens in a new window
Official digital archive of the Library of Congress and the database of record for graduate research. Search citations to dissertations and theses from around the world from 1861 to present day, and access full text dissertations.

Key Ethnomusicological Journals at Emory

A selective list of journals available at Emory and generally useful for academic papers.

Acta Musicologica
Asian Music
Asian Musicology
Black Music Research Journal
British Journal of Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology (formerly Ethno-Musicology)
Ethnomusicology Forum
Ethnomusicology Online
Folk Music Journal (back issues)
Journal of Musicological Research
Journal of Musicology
Journal of the American Musicological Society
Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (back issues)
Journal of the Royal Musical Association
Music Review
Musicology in China (Zhongguo Yin Yue Xue)
Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology
People's Music (Ren Min Yin Yue)
Popular Music
Popular Music and Society
Study of Music (Yin Yue Yan Jiu)
World of Music
Yearbook for Traditional Music

Scholarly vs. Popular Publications

Scholarly journal articles are usually the most appropriate for academic papers. Characteristics of scholarly publications:

Report on primary research
Written by experts in the field
Written for other researchers/scholars
Use terms and language that are discipline-specific
Usually include in-text citations and a bibliography of cited sources
May include graphs, charts, etc. related to the topic
Often are peer reviewed by an editorial board of experts
Published by a professional organization or society, university, research center, or scholarly press.

Examples include: Ethnomusicology, Journal of Musicology, American Music, Musical Quarterly, and Popular Music.

Popular newspaper and magazine articles are useful when your topic is so current that scholars haven't written much about it or you need first-hand, contemporaneous reports (such as a newspaper or magazine review by a person who attended a work's premiere). Characteristics of popular publications:

Contain general information that appeals to a wide audience
Written by journalists or others who are not professionals in that field
Use easily understood language
Usually do NOT include citations or a bibliography
Limited or non-existent editorial review
May contain glossy photographs and/or advertisements

Examples include: The New Yorker, Down Beat, Rolling Stone, and Variety.