Music Article Databases!

The field of musicology has formally existed for nearly 100 years, the practice of research and writing about music has existed for centuries! What does this mean for you? There's no such thing as "there's nothing written about my topic." Rather than being a matter of whether something has or hasn't been written, finding appropriate research material is really about knowing where to look for it.

Everything you need to find your research material is available to you through the library, where we provide access to nearly 700 databases. Of those 700, 24 databases are dedicated to musical subjects and provide access to online encyclopedias, scores, sound and video recordings, and scholarly articles and reviews. Since the research season is upon us, this month's resource of the month are the Music Article Databases.

The International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) is a terrific resource for a wide variety of information needs. It indexes scholarly and popular music journals from 1874 to the present. Whether you need scholarly articles discussing the idea of gesture in Bach's cello suites or an interview with jazz educator David Baker, IIMP has it.

Music Index provides bibliographic citations of articles in 840 internationally published scholarly music journals. While the long-standing emphasis on European art music within the musicological field is mirrored in the content of the Music Index, the trend towards inclusivity and the recognition of popular music as a legitimate research area is also mapped by the content of citations in the Music Index.

The Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM) indexes the articles published in roughly 120 journals published between 1800 and 1950. While the historical content of RIPM clearly means this is not a good source for articles about hip-hop, it does mean you have tremendous access to articles written by 19th century composers as well as the articles they were likely to have read and been influenced by.

Repertoire International de Litterature Musical (RILM) is my personal favorite and the most comprehensive database for musical materials available at any library. Don't be alarmed by it's French title, RILM has content in all languages and certainly enough content written in English to provide you with ample resources. RILM indexes not only articles, but books and dissertations as well.

Find these databases and 20 other music databases online on your Music Research Guide! For more help finding research materials and suggestions for advanced searching in the databases, schedule an appointment with your music library, Lisa, by sending her an email at lhooper1@tulane.edu.