Archival and Primary Sources at Northeastern
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American Composers Forum New England records (Opens in new window)The collection documents the founding, administration, and programming activities of the New England Chapter of the American Composers Forum (ACFNE) from its creation in 1996 through its closure in 2010.
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Boston Women's Music Collective records (Opens in new window)The Boston Women's Music Collective was founded in June 1975 in Somerville, Massachusetts. Its purpose was to support women's music and women composers, musicians, and performers. The Boston Women's Music Collective published a monthly newsletter and sponsored events featuring a variety of musical genres for women with different interests, lifestyles, and talents.
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Center for Contemporary Music (Mills/Northeastern Oakland Campus) (Opens in new window)CCM's archives include an extensive collection of recordings made at Mills and the San Francisco Tape Music Center. These rare recordings of influential works and interviews from an earlier era of electronic music represent a valuable piece of musical history. The archives also contain a large collection of technical journals, periodicals, and books. Contact Lawral Warnek, Music Librarian at F. W. Olin Library, Oakland, for assistance.
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Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts records (Opens in new window)The collection documents the founding, staffing, and management activities of the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts; the school's long history of financial difficulties; and other national and local organizations related to African American culture in theater, music, dance, and the visual arts.
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John Ross papers (Opens in new window)The John Ross papers document his work as music director of Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts (ELSFA) and National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), and his professional activities outside of them. The majority of the collection concerns musical arrangements by John Ross and performances of either Ross or the NCAAA. These include sheet music, scripts, advertisements, programs, and cast lists.
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Larry Katz Interviews (Northeastern University) This link opens in a new windowHundreds of interviews conducted by music critic and Boston Herald columnist Larry Katz, with musicians and performers, both internationally famous and local Boston-based artists.
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Lower Roxbury Black History Project (Opens in new window)In 2006 Northeastern President Aoun appointed, Joseph D. Warren, at that time Special Assistant to the Director of Government Relations and Community Affairs, to oversee the Lower Roxbury Black History Project. In November 2007, Warren hired Lolita Parker Jr., a photographer and documentary film researcher, to collect oral histories and artifacts documenting the community's rich history. From 2007-2009 with the assistance of her son, London Parker-McWhorter, Parker spoke with over 40 residents of Roxbury. These recordings have some mention of the role music played in this Boston neighborhood.
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A Note to You recordings (Opens in new window)"A Note to You" was a classical music radio show broadcasted by WGBH and Northeastern University from Ryder Hall on Northeastern's campus. Roland Nadeau, who also started the Music Department at Northeastern, created the show in the interest of educating children on classical music. Initially, the show was broadcast on WHDH.
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The Phoenix (Opens in new window)For more than 40 years (1972-2013), the Phoenix was Boston's alternative newspaper of record, the first word on social justice, politics, as well as the arts and music scene.
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WFNX (Opens in new window)Part of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group since its launch in February 1983 as the East Coast’s first Alternative Rock station, WFNX has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. Over the years, WFNX was acclaimed nationally by its industry peers, winning, among many others, four “Station of the Year” awards by the Gavin Report and proclaimed by Rolling Stone magazine as “One of 10 stations in the country that don’t suck;” all of this in recognition of the station’s willingness to take chances and not just cater its programming to the lowest common denominator.
Finding Other Archival Sources
See also "Free web historical recordings" on the Getting Started with Listening page.
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ArchiveGrid (Opens in new window)WorldCat's freely searchable collection of archival records. Will not get you to the full text, but will instead tell you where a particular author's papers are scattered, or particular manuscripts are held. Uncovers the existence of archives that are hard to find other ways.
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Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) This link opens in a new windowPrimary source information digitized from Americas libraries, archives, and museums, from the written word to works of art and culture, to records of the heritage of the United States, to the efforts and data of science. Photographs, documents, music, video, data, lesson plans for teaching.
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Europeana (Opens in new window)A master search engine for digitized objects from many of Europe's major cultural institutions.
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Smithsonian Global Sound This link opens in a new windowAn international network of music audio archives grounded in the mission of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Offers access to the "smaller voices" of people all over the world via digital downloads. Aims to heighten communication among and about people and cultures. Also notes, images, videos, educational features, and lesson plans.
Biography
See "Reframing the Music Classroom" for information about researching diverse and underdocumented musicians and musical genres.
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Music Sack (Opens in new window)Comprehensive database of "people involved in music," including biographies, articles/books, bands, churches, and theaters. Stronger on classical and historical musicians.
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HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowInterviews highlighting Black Americans
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Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new windowIncludes the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
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University of Hartford Black Classical Music and Musicians: Take Action (Opens in new window)There are many ways to promote Black music and musicians! This Guide includes a few of the many ways to participate in this work.
Digital Scholarship Projects
The Music Library Association compiled a list of digital projects (Directory of Digital Scholarship in Music (Opens in new window)) over the course of 2018-2023.
While this is a static site, a dynamic list is available in Google Sheets; you can view and add projects to it here (Opens in new window).
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Music Encoding Initiative (Opens in new window)An ongoing open-source project to devise standards for encoding musical documents, including those in Common Western notation, mensural (Renaissance-era) and neume (Medieval) notations.
Dissertations and Theses
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Dissertations and Theses Global (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowSearch doctoral dissertations and master's theses from around the world.
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Dissertations and Theses @ Northeastern (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowSearch doctoral dissertations and theses from Northeastern University Masters and PhD degree candidates.
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Northeastern Theses and Dissertations (Northeastern University) This link opens in a new windowSearch doctoral dissertations and master's theses from 2008 to the present in Northeastern's openly accessible Digital Repository Service.
Interlibrary Partnerships
Interlibrary delivery: ILLiad
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If you need a book or article that's not in the NU Library, use ILLiad, Northeastern's interlibrary delivery service:
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Request a book or media (to pick up in Snell)
Interdisciplinary journal research
RILM and the other music-specific resources on the home page of this guide are key resources for music scholarship. The resources below also have substantial music-related articles and information.
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Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowAcademic articles in all topics, including music. Can be combine-searched with RILM to broaden your results.
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American Periodicals Series, 1741-1940 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowAmerican magazines and journals published between 1741 and 1940.
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Arts and Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new windowCitation tracking and research abstracts from over 1,160 of the world's leading journals in archeology, architecture, dance, music, film and theater, history, humanities, literature, and religion. Track prior research, get alerts on who is citing your work, measure influence, get impact factors, and navigate forward, backward and through the literature of your discipline. 1975-present
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Business Source Ultimate (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowScholarly, peer-reviewed articles and professional association news and information, the majority in full text. Some video.
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Directory of Open Access Journals in Music (Opens in new window)Open access journals are available for free public use and re-use. Search topics or explore publishing opportunities
Journal articles (scholarly and peer reviewed)
RILM: Use the "academic journals" filter; most of the results will be in peer reviewed journals.
Scholar OneSearch: use the "peer reviewed" filter, or search the article or its DOI (digital object identifer, a unique number starting with 10.xxxx).
Journal impact factors:
- Understanding the impact factor (Opens in new window)(video tutorial, opens in a new window) in this video tutorial from Die Bibliotek Wirtschaft & Management
- More details from Clarivate (Opens in new window), the publisher who creates impact factors.
- Search JCR(Opens in new window) (NU login required)
Google Scholar: Customized for Northeastern!
Customize Google Scholar in order to get access to full articles through Northeastern's library subscriptions.
Go to Settings
-->Library Links
-->Northeastern
-->GetIt@Northeastern
For more, see our Google Scholar tutorial.(Opens in new window)
News and Newspapers for Music Research
See the library's News and Newspapers Guide
Also see our tutorial, How Do I Find Historical Newspapers?
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Access World News Research Collection (Newsbank) This link opens in a new windowOur largest general news source, with current and complete newspapers, magazines, wire services from around the world. Backfiles sometimes go back to the 1980s. Text only.
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BillboardThe international music-record newsweekly. Industry news, legal updates, trends, and charts
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Boston Phoenix (1973-2013) (Internet Archive) This link opens in a new windowBoston's alternative newspaper of record, the first word on social justice, politics, as well as the arts and music scene.(1972-2013)
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Ebony Magazine Archive (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowThe Ebony Magazine Archive covers civil rights, education, entrepreneurship and other social topics with an African-American focus, including more than 800 issues providing a broad view of African-American culture from its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
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Ethnic NewsWatch (Proquest) This link opens in a new windowInterdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) full text newspapers, magazines and journals of American ethnic, minority and indigenous communities. Offers additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream press.
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Playbill (Opens in new window)This website of the theater magazine, which includes domestic and international theater news and features. Excerpts, ticket sales. Free, ad-supported.
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Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new windowAn online database of primary source information from the 1960s to the present day covering all aspects of popular music. Includes articles from the music and mainstream press, reviews (albums and concerts), feature essays and audio interviews.
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Rolling Stone (Opens in new window)Rock & Roll, national affairs, feature stories, reviews, classified ads, and the music charts
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Variety (Opens in new window)Entertainment news in all genres. Includes reviews, awards, festivals, box office, entertainment industry conferences.
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World Intellectual Property Organization Magazine (WIPO) (Opens in new window)WIPO is the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation.
Music Theory Tools
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Musictheory.net (Opens in new window)Includes introductory and intermediate music theory lessons, ear trainers, and books.
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teoría:Music Theory Web (Opens in new window)teoría.com is a web site dedicated to the study and practice of music theory.