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

Encyclopedias

Cambridge Histories Online - Music
A set of 7 volumes covering music history from the 17th century to the 20th.

Music Online: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online
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 Music Online
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
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

Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music by Joseph P. Swain
The dictionary section has more than 800 cross-referenced entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions. This book is an excellent reference for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about sacred music.
The Bible in Music by Siobhán Dowling Long; John F. A. Sawyer
Call Number: Ireland Library - ML102.C5 L66 2015
The authors bring attention to the Bible's impact on popular culture with numerous entries on hymns, spirituals, musicals, film music, and contemporary popular music. Each entry contains essential information about the original context of the work (date, composer, etc.) and, where relevant, its afterlife in literature, film, politics, and liturgy. It includes an index of biblical references and an index of biblical names, as well as a detailed timeline that brings to the fore key events, works, and publications, placing them in their historical context.
Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music by Joseph Peter Swain
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library - ML102.C5 S83 2006
The Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music covers the most important aspects of the sacred music of Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and other smaller religious groups. It provides useful information on all the significant traditions of this music through the use of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions.

Bibliographies

Sourcebook for Research in Music, Third Edition by Allen Scott
Extensive bibliography of sources of literature about music, fields of musical study, musicians, and instruments, as well as sources of scores and recordings.
Solo Vocal Works on Jewish Themes by Kenneth Jaffe
ISBN: 9780810861350
A comprehensive and annotated compendium of stage, concert, and liturgical compositions written by Jewish composers from every known time period and country.
Church and worship music : an annotated bibliography of contemporary scholarship by James Michael Floyd; Avery T. Sharp
Call Number: Ireland Library Reference - ML128.C54 S43 2005
Contains a full bibliography of books, recordings, videos, and websites in the field of church music.