LibGuides: Music : Find Articles

Searching for Articles

Writing a paper? Preparing a speech? Getting ready for a presentation? You need research articles! Look through the resources below for the best places to find articles related to music.

We've listed the primary resources for articles about music in the "Core Resources" section, just below this box, and other resources that might be useful in the "Related Resources" section below that. Make sure you try them all!

Remember that music is an interdisciplinary field; depending on your research topic, you may want to look at resources pertaining to dance, literature, art, theatre, and anthropology as well.

If you get stuck or need assistance, contact a librarian. We are here to help!

Related Resources

The following resources will come in particularly handy if your research topic is interdisciplinary, i.e. if it includes other related areas such as dance, theatre, literature, history, and so forth. When you consider that something as basic to music as a song is also literary, because it has a text, then you can start to see how closely related music can be to many other fields.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Scholarly literature in many disciplines. Includes peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, universities and other scholarly organizations.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window This resource indexes literary and linguistic materials, including topics that might cross over into music research.
17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window This large, comprehensive collection of early English news media (newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides) totals almost 1 million pages. Primary source material on all topics including music and the theatre.
The Times (London) Historical Archive (1785-2014) This link opens in a new window Search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London) to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is available, including all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos, from 1785-2006; contains over 7.6 million articles. Primary source material such as concert and theatre announcements and reviews, opinion, etc.
Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 This link opens in a new window Subjects: General, Multidisciplinary, Humanities Funded by ISU Libraries

Core Resources

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
Music Index This link opens in a new window Indexes articles on composers and music from all styles and genres; more than 700 periodical titles are included.
MUSE This link opens in a new window Provides full-text articles from a small but important collection of scholarly journals on music, mostly published since 2000.
JSTOR (Arts & Sciences I-XV, Ecology & Botany I, Life Sciences) This link opens in a new window Includes full-text articles from academic journals in music and many other subject areas.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window A comprehensive scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, designed specifically for academic researchers. Much of the content is full text, or links to full text in other resources.
Music Online: Music and Performing Arts This link opens in a new window Includes streaming audio, video, reference books, and scores from African American Music Reference, Classical Music Library, Classical Music Reference Library, Classical Scores Library, Dance in Video, The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online, and Opera in Video.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture This link opens in a new window Primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores.
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window Comprehensive database covering the humanities. Indexing and abstracting for over 2,000 journals. Previous title: American Humanities Index. Citations and abstracts for articles, essays, reviews, and creative works (poems, fiction, photographs, paintings and illustrations).

Journals by Title

Did you find an article you'd like read, but don't know if the library owns the journal? Enter the journal title below to find the full text.

Interlibrary Loan

Can't find the full text? Don't despair! Learn how you can request the article from another library and how to use our ILLiad interlibrary loan system.

Request Training

Are you an instructor? Would you like to have a librarian teach your class to use these resources? We are happy to help! Visit the library Instructional Services page to learn more.