Research and Course Guides: Music Resources: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Bibliographies

Encyclopedias

Bloomsbury Music & Sound This link opens in a new window
Provides scholarly coverage of modern popular music worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present day. Explore the historical origins and cultural impact of popular music from almost every country in the world and discover more about influential artists and albums, local music scenes, and subcultures. Learn about musical form, instruments, and the workings of the music industry and research the social, political, and economic context of different musical genres.
The resource includes access to:
• The 14-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
• 120 book series, providing in-depth analysis of influential albums

MGG Online
Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG) is a general encyclopedia of music. MGG offers in-depth articles on every aspect of music as well as many related areas such as literature, philosophy, and visual arts. MGG Online contains the second print edition of MGG, published from 1994 to 2008, as well as current, continuous online updates and additions.

Music Online: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online This link opens in a new window
Over 1,000 articles covering the music of all the world’s peoples, with over 200 audio tracks. Includes overviews of geographic regions, their musical heritages, and descriptions of genres, practices, and performances. Illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps, and musical examples.
Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
The African American Studies Center contains brief articles on all aspects of the African-American experience along with images, primary sources, time lines, maps, tables, and reference resources.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Includes 4 music reference resources: "Grove Music"--full texts of New Grove Music, New Grove Opera, and New Grove Jazz; "Oxford Companion to Music" and "Oxford Dictionary of Music"--concise articles on musicians, individual works, instruments, notation, forms, & genres; and "Encyclopedia of Popular Music"--covers all genres and periods of popular music from 1900 to the present including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music. Limited to 5 simultaneous users.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Oxford Reference contains full text dictionaries and encyclopedias from the Oxford University Press. It is easy to search and contains entries on a wide array of topics from business, computing and environmental science to art, biology, literature, religion, and political science.

Dictionaries

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
Call Number: OSF Reference Collection - ML105 .B16 2001
ISBN: 9780028655253
Best English language biographical dictionary of musicians. In addition to composers and musicians, includes musicologists, theorists, critics, etc.

The Grove Dictionary of American Music (2 ed.)
Discover articles, biographies, and in-depth analysis covering diverse topics in American music, second edition.
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The second edition of the Grove Dictionary of American Music includes articles by 1500 scholars that cover a broad expanse of topics dealing with American music, including popular music, cities and regions, musical theater, opera, concert music, and music technology, as well as the musical traditions of many ethnic and cultural groups.

Harvard Dictionary of Music by Don Michael Randel (Editor)
Call Number: OSF Reference Collection - ML100 .A64 2003
ISBN: 9780674011632
The standard resource for definitions of music terminology and other topics, it includes information on musical periods, instruments, musical forms. Many entries are lengthy and include bibliographies.

Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window
This resource is a combination of "an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia". Articles are written by renowned scholars in the fields and resources are reviewed for scholarly accuracy.

Blacks in Classical Music II by John Gray
Call Number: ML128.B45 G73 2023
ISBN: 9780984413492
People of African descent have been active in Western art music since its inception. Black performers were valued members of court orchestras starting in the early 1500s, and since the 18th century have been acclaimed as both performers and composers in locales ranging from Europe and the United States to sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. However, this rich legacy remains little known. This monumental new work seeks to correct that oversight.
Global Jazz by Clarence Bernard Henry
Call Number: ML128.J3 H46 2022
ISBN: 9780367724832
An annotated bibliography that explores the global impact of jazz, detailing the evolution of the African American musical tradition as it has been absorbed, transformed, and expanded across the world's historical, political, and social landscapes.