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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2020
Typical questions
• I want to research the rise of Korean hip-hop.
• Can you recommend a website with free vocal scores?
Starting points
• Most students have used music downloading websites such as iTunes but they may be unfamiliar with academic resources. This section offers a series of starting points that can be explored to find authoritative resources on specific instruments, time periods and genres.
• Information about musicians and composers can also be found using the Biographical Information chapter.
Recommended resources
Key organisations
Use the websites of these scholarly societies to trace news, careers advice, events listings and specialist research groups.
Royal Musical Association
www.rma.ac.uk
Founded in 1834. Supports many conferences and study days.
American Musicological Society [Specialist]
www.amsmusicology.org
Influential organisation with international membership. Website provides free access to Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology (DDM), an international database of references to theses in music, music theory and ethnomusicology.
International Musicological Society (IMS)
www.ims-online.ch
Website has an excellent directory of links to national music societies worldwide. Members have online access to journal publications.
Study guides and encyclopedias
Cecilia
www.cecilia-uk.org
Searchable database of music collections held in UK libraries, museums and archives.
Discovering Music [Basic]
www.bl.uk/20th-century-music
Free access to this fantastic British Library resource designed for A level and undergraduate students. It includes digitised music scores and manuscripts, plus journal articles to set the works in their social and political context. Featured 20th century composers include Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams.
Oxford Music Online (Subscription) [Basic]
www.oxfordmusiconline.com
Contains the full text of leading reference sources such as The Oxford Companion to Music, Grove Music and The Oxford Dictionary of Music. It includes timelines, biographies and articles on key themes and composers.
RISM: The International Inventory of Musical Sources (Specialist]
www.rism.info
Répertoire International des Sources Musicales. Searchable index of over 700,000 musical manuscripts and scores, mainly from 1600–1800, held in libraries and research centres worldwide. Useful for tracing the existence and location of materials.
Journal articles
Music Periodicals Database (Subscription) [Specialist]
www.proquest.com/products-services/iimp_ft.html
Extensive coverage of journal articles, encompassing all genres of music and aspects of its theory and practice. Some materials date back to the 19th century.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (Subscription) [Specialist]
www.rilm.org/abstracts
Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale. Indexes books, chapters, articles and reports covering all aspects of music from 1967 onwards.
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