Research Guides: Music: Music Articles

Music Reference Resources

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Music encyclopedia, offering coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
A comprehensive guide to publications on music from all over the world, RILM Abstracts covers all literature about music, not just journal articles. Entries include abstracts in English. Coverage begins with 1967. Truncation symbol: *. Wildcard: ? for one character, * for multiple characters.
International Index to Music Periodicals
Try this for popular music. Indexes articles in more than 430 music journals from about 20 countries; selectively indexes some newspapers. Coverage begins with 1996 except for selected titles indexed in their entirety. Abstracts are provided for articles published after 1995.

Academic Databases

These databases cover a wide range of territory, so you may need to refine your search to focus on music subjects. They will be useful for constructing an argument about what scholars have to say about a particular topic.

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.
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.
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.

Comparing Scholarly and Popular Sources

Scholarly-journal articles are are the foundation of academic papers.
In the academic world, people create arguments by referring and citing previous academic works, especially articles that appear in academic journals. In addition, scholars will also write full-length academic books, which are often called monographs. In your assignments, these will typically be the highest-quality sources to use. They represent a particular academic's viewpoint, and they follow academic conventions.

Popular publications still have value!
However, that doesn't mean that non-academic sources are worthless. Particularly in a subject like music, it will take several years before academics are able to publish material about material that was released today. Additionally, popular sources can contain valuable information about how music was perceived at the time it was released. If you wanted to argue that people didn't appreciate a particular artist, it would be perfectly acceptable to cite a negative review in Rolling Stone. Popular sources can also be extremely helpful for finding quotes directly from an artist, especially in interviews or other features.

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.	New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone, Variety, AV Club, Spin, Vulture, etc.

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.	Cambridge Opera Journal, Journal of Musicology, American Music, Music and Letters, Musical Quarterly.