Music: Open Source Databases

New Source for Jazz - . Music Rising at Tulane: The Musical Cultures of the Gulf South  The Archive of New Orleans Jazz (renamed the William Ransom Hogan Archive of New Orleans Jazz in 1974) at Tulane University was established in 1958 with Ford Foundation funding to initiate an oral history fieldwork project gathering the stories of the men and women who contributed to the development of jazz in New Orleans.

American Composers Alliance -  In 1937, the American Composers Alliance (ACA) was first formed as an independent licensing association, to represent American-born or naturalized composers whose music was based on classical, not popular styles. In 1944, ACA became affiliated with the newly-formed Broadcast Music Inc. 
In 2000, ACA joined with Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland (SCPA) to preserve ACA music score masters in a state-of-the-art research archive. The masters and copies deposited with ACA have been donated to SCPA for professional preservation, and for ongoing future access for students, researchers, and performers, while the scanning and digitizing of the scores continues on an ongoing basis as funding is available.

Bach Bibliography: for the Global Community of Bach Scholars - Currently, the database contains ca. 52,000 reference items (the exact number and the date of the last upload are always displayed in the homepage). Since the aim of this database project is to provide scholarly information to the community of academics, the following guidelines are used for the selection of references:

• Published books of scholarly contents and reviews
• Published articles of scholarly contents (including reviews and correspondence)
• Published facsimiles
• Printed edition of music (focusing on pre-1950 at present)
• Unpublished dissertations (Master and Doctor) from universities
• Unpublished papers read at recognized conference or meeting

Canadian Music Periodical Index - The CMPI database includes over 37 000 entries on articles dating from the late-19th century to the present day. 630 Canadian music journals, newsletters and magazines are represented here, almost 200 of which are currently active and continue to be indexed. A complete list of the periodical titles that have been included in CMPI is available on this website.

Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology - (DDM) is an international database of bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, as well as in related musical, scientific, and humanistic disciplines. Currently containing over 14,000 records, including the corrected and updated contents of all earlier printed editions of Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology and supplements contributed from musicological centers throughout the world, the database is fully searchable. 

International Inventory of Musical Sources -RISM—the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (International Inventory of Musical Sources)—represents a worldwide effort to identify and describe sources of music and writings about music from the earliest times through ca. 1850. RISM activities in the United States are overseen and sponsored by the Joint Committee on RISM of the American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Music Library Association (MLA). 

 Latin Choral Music- is an English language compilation of information about choral music by Latin American composers from 1550 to the present.  Most of the music relates to traditional forms though some world and  folk music is represented. Original compositions and arrangements are included..

The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection -  The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music. This music was generously donated to The Johns Hopkins University by Lester S. Levy over a period of years starting in 1976 and is now housed in the Special Collections Division of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. The collection spans the years 1780 to 1980, but its strength is its thorough documentation of nineteenth-century America through popular music. The collection is especially strong in music spawned by military conflicts from the War of 1812 through World War I, and minstrel music is also well represented. Other topics include music about the circus; dance; drinking, temperance, and smoking; fraternal orders; presidents; romantic and sentimental songs; schools and colleges; and transportation. The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music. This music was generously donated to The Johns Hopkins University by Lester S. Levy over a period of years starting in 1976 and is now housed in the Special Collections Division of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. The collection spans the years 1780 to 1980, but its strength is its thorough documentation of nineteenth-century America through popular music. The collection is especially strong in music spawned by military conflicts from the War of 1812 through World War I, and minstrel music is also well represented. Other topics include music about the circus; dance; drinking, temperance, and smoking; fraternal orders; presidents; romantic and sentimental songs; schools and colleges; and transportation.

The Living Composers Project - The LCP contains, as of 18 June 2014, data about 2816 composers, from Aa–Zyatkov, representing 94 countries and altogether more than 110,000 works. This resource is a combination of profiles and  website links.

MuseData -  The CCARH MuseData collection has been developed with the goal of providing a secure foundation for research, performance, pedagogy, and virtual editions. All of these needs require a "core work" but each may additionally require data nuances that may not be found in these encodings. Musical data for computational analysis purposes is available in the MusicData repository: http://musedata.org . The encoding efforts have thus far been focused on music composed in Europe roughly between 1700 and 1825. Sources are easily available for this period. Notational conventions are well understood. Interest on the part of performers, teachers, scholars, and listeners is well established.

 MuSICA currently provides all issues of MuSICA Research Notes. MRN is a newsletter of analysis and commentary on the broad field of research on music and behavior, including evolution, brain mechanisms, child development, perception, learning, memory, performance, health and related topics.

Music Education Search System – contains these two research tools.  Be sure to read the site information.

 The Poland-Cady Abstract Collection - More than 4,500 entries collected by William Poland and Henry Cady of The Ohio State University during the late 1960's.  Under a federal grant, these researchers attempted to collect and abstract important writings in the field of music education written prior to 1965.  The database contains author, title, source, and abstract information for each of the citations identified by Poland and Cady.

Music Journals – this site indexes the following journals and is best for known items. Most have been indexed from inception to the most current issue.  It cannot be subject searched:

Themefinder - Themefinder is a non-profit collaborative project of the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities (CCARH) at Stanford University and the Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory at the Ohio State University. Both the notated images and underlying data representations used by Themefinder are protected by international copyright laws. Visitors to this site are free to use Themefinder to search for musical themes for personal, teaching and non-commercial research purposes. However, any attempt to download the database, in whole or in part, will be considered a breach of copyright, and may lead to denial of access or legal action.

Choral Public Domain Library – holds free scores of at least 24,684 choral and vocal works by at least 2,790 composers. The CPDL copyright license applies to all scores and texts which reside on the CPDL server, unless otherwise indicated. The CPDL license is a type of open-source license which allows users to download, print, copy, and distribute a score freely. Each copy must include an appropriate copyright notice as described. If any changes are made to a score or text, the subsequent modified version must still be released under the same license conditions.  Please be aware that some materials available through this site are hosted on third party sites. The copyright of the third party site applies.

Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music – Images and metadata for thousands of manuscripts are available on this website.  While full text images are available, this site only functions as a scholarly bibliographic took for medieval music  You must set up a personal account to fully use this resource. Please pay attention to the registration agreement.  They are very specific about allowed uses.

Duke University Libraries Historic American Sheet Music -  The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University holds a significnt collection of 19^th and early 20^th century American sheet music.  The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.  Please use the about tab to be informed about user rights and other features of this database. 

The Lester S. Levy Collection – The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music…the collection is especially strong in music .. from the War of 1812 through World War I and minstrel music.  Other topics include music about the circus, dance, drinking, temperance, smoking, fraternal orders, presidents, romantic and sentimental songs, schools and colleges, and transportation.

The Julliard Manuscript Collection - The Juilliard Manuscript Collection is an extraordinary collection of 140 priceless autograph manuscripts, sketches, engravers proofs and first editions,  Among its highlights are the late engraver’s proof of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, with hundreds of markings and annotations by the composer; the original manuscript of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, in his arrangement for piano, 4 hands; and, the last scene of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.  

Music Manuscripts Online - The goal of the Music Manuscripts Online project has been to create and to provide online access to high-quality images and descriptions of music manuscripts owned by The Morgan Library & Museum  The Music Manuscripts Online Web pages provide access to digitized versions of more than 600 music manuscripts. Please click on the prompt “Image Use” to learn how the materials may be legally used.

Royal Holloway University of London Repository Early Music Online – This collection holds digitized images of some of the world’s oldest volumes of printed music.  Early Music Online is the result of a pilot project in which more than 300 volumes of 16^th century music from the British Library were digitized from microfilm. 

Sheet Music Consortium – is a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music…a large proportion of the original sheets in participating collections has been digitized allowing users direct access to the music itself and in many cases covers and advertisements that offer evidence of the cultural context in which the songs were published. Check digitized music in the search bar to locate material you can use immediately. 

Sibley Music Library Musical Scores.  Full text scores and books in the public domain.  Many are unique to University of Rochester’s Sibley Music Library.  To search this collections choose Browse All/Search then Browse Authors/Contributors

University of North Texas Virtual Music Rare Book Room - The UNT Music Library's Virtual Music Rare Book Room is composed primarily of digitized materials held in the Edna Mae Sandborn Music Rare Book Room. The collection is particularly strong in eighteenth-century French opera.

​World War I Sheet Music - From 1914 through 1920 the Library of Congress acquired over 14,000 pieces of sheet music relating to what ultimately became known as the First World War... New York's Tin Pan Alley, was at its height and a new musical form known as "jazz" was emerging.  

In addition to commercially published songs, the collection also contains "music of the people" - the work of amateurs in vanity press editions and unpublished manuscripts.  The essay "World War I Sheet Music at the Library of Congress: America's War, as Viewed by Publishers and the Public" discusses the historical context of the collected songs and their reflection of American society during the war. 

The Opera Platform - is the online destination for the promotion and enjoyment of opera. It is designed to appeal equally to those who already love opera and to those who may be tempted to try it for the first time. It offers a range of content from the most popular titles to the most innovative: