- America’s Shrine to Music Museum
- An outstanding collection of more than 100,000 instruments from all cultures and historical periods, American, European and non-Western. Many of the instruments are particularly important historically. An absorbing virtual gallery tour is illustrated extensively, and bibliographical citations are linked to checklists for each instrument. The collection contains some facilities for dating instruments by serial number.
- The British Library
- The national library of the United Kingdom holds the world’s finest collection of books, journals, manuscripts, maps, printed music and sound recordings. The manuscript music collection includes over 100,000 items and there are 1.5 million printed music items, covering all types of music. The major catalogues are available through the British Library public catalogue and there is provision for acquiring photocopies of material. You can also consult the manuscripts catalogue. (Access to the British Library Public Catalogue is also available through the Open University Library.)
- Centre for Black Music Research
- The Centre for Black Music Research aims to promote research, preservation and dissemination of information about the history of black music of all types on a global scale. It supports and originates study in the areas of black secular and sacred folk music, blues, black rock, samba, ragtime, jazz, gospel music, rhythm and blues, musical theatre and dance, opera and concert music, reggae, son, merengue/méringue, bomba y plena, salsa, calypso and other genres from the Caribbean, traditional and contemporary music from Africa, and hip-hop and other contemporary musics. One of its most important publications is the Black Music Research Journal (from 1980).
- Centre for Popular Music Research
- The Centre for Popular Music Research aims to explore various forms of popular music through research and teaching, focusing on three main themes: pop music and youth culture; pop music as an industry and pop music as medium in sound. The Centre publishes the journal PopScriptum (in German) (1992–), and there are excellent bibliographies available.
- Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online (DDM-Online)
- This website contains a database of bibliographic records for dissertations, both completed and in progress, in the fields of musicology, music theory and ethnomusicology. More than 10,800 records include those in the earlier printed editions of Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology. You can search by author and/or by as many as three simultaneous key words.
- About Bob [Dylan]
- This site includes a very large collection of data about Bob Dylan, ranging from a year-by-year chronicle, via detailed lists of his recording sessions and song lists for each concert, to information concerning books published about him.
- Fractal Music
- The Fractal Music Project aims to promote interest and research into fractal music, ‘the result of a recursive process when an algorithm is applied multiple times to process its previous output … all musical forms, both in micro and macro level can be modelled with this process’. Information on software used to produce fractal music is available.
- The Grove Dictionary of Art
- The Grove Dictionary of Art Online provides access to the Grove Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 volumes). 45,000 signed articles, including 21,000 biographical entries, provide extensive coverage of world art, and there are 130,000 searchable images and 30,000 links to colour images from other art sites. More than 1,000 links connect to high-quality art-related websites. You can gain access to The Grove Dictionary of Art Online via the Postgraduate Music Website Databases.
- International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM)
- The International Alliance for Women in Music was created in 1995 through the merger of American Women Composers, the International Congress for Women in Music and the International League of Women Composers. Its website of more than 4,500 pages forms a comprehensive resource for women composers and women in music topics. It publishes two journals, IAWM Journal (thrice-yearly – a cumulative list of articles is available) and Women and Music: a Journal of Gender and Culture.
- Medieval Music Database, La Trobe University Library
- This database, focusing on fourteenth-century music, contains an annual cycle of liturgical chant taken from medieval sources, and information on works by selected twelfth- to fifteenth-century composers. Each listed work is documented under the following headings (where relevant): Sources, Facsimiles, Editions, Literature, Recordings and Texts.
- Society for Music Theory (USA)
- The Society for Music Theory, established in 1977, aims to develop music theory in all its aspects, including research and teaching. Three useful databases can be searched. The first contains information on the research profiles of scholars worldwide; the second is an inventory of analyses; and third is a bibliographical database listing citations of articles and reviews published in the major music theory journals. Apart from its newsletter, the society also publishes the journal, Music Theory Spectrum, now online, and Music Theory Online.