Subject Guides: * Music: Home

Music Research - Getting Started

The USM Libraries have a ton of helpful people and resources to make sure you're on the right track with your research! A few tips for getting started on your project:

Talk with your professor if you have any questions about the assignment.
Give yourself as much time as possible to find and request resources, write your assignment, and revise it.
Make a research appointment with a librarian, or email Carrie directly (carrie.bellhoerth@maine.edu) to set up a meeting.
Activate your USM Library Account.
Use URSUS and MaineCat to request items from public and academic libraries around the state.
Sign up for an ILLiad account to request scores, articles, books, and more from libraries all over the world - all for free!
- ***You should never have to pay for access to library resources; if you hit a paywall or aren't sure how to get access to something, please contact us and we'll help.
Work with a USM Writing Assistant at any point during the writing process.
Use the resources in this LibGuide to find books, ebooks, scholarly articles, scores, and more!

Find Books, eBooks, and Scores

URSUS (Library Catalog) This link opens in a new window
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URSUS is the book catalog for the University of Maine System Libraries, the Bangor Public Library, Maine State Library, Maine State Archives, and Maine State Law & Legislative Reference Library. Records for books, videos and other non-article materials are indexed. Online access is provided within records to online sources, such as e-books and streaming videos. Items can be requested for delivery to USM using your USM library barcode.
MaineCat This link opens in a new window
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Statewide book catalog that includes Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, UNE, and many other academic and public libraries in Maine. Items can be requested for delivery to USM using your USM library barcode.
WorldCat This link opens in a new window
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Bibliographic records for more than 36 million items held at OCLC member libraries throughout the world. Many items are requestable via your ILLiad account. Includes all types of information resources. Updated daily.

Find Articles

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Academic Search Complete is a large scholarly, multidisciplinary, full-text database, with more than 7,400 full-text periodicals, including more than 6,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 11,500 scholarly, popular, trade, and special interest serials, and a total of more than 12,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and more. Updated daily.
Grove Music Online (Oxford) This link opens in a new window
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Grove Music Online is also referred to as Oxford Music Online. This premier music encyclopedia includes 60,000 articles, many sound files, videos, musical examples, and Web links. Regulary updated.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR is a full text digital archive of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Coverage generally begins with the first issuse running to within 3 years of present. Current issues of journals are often available from other USM databases.
Music Index with Full Text This link opens in a new window
An essential database for music scholars, Music Index with Full Text covers every aspect of classical and popular music. In addition to full-text journals, it includes reviews of performances, sound recordings and videos
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Project Muse, a project initiated by John's Hopkins University Press, provides PDF full-text access to more than 600 peer-reviewed journals from 250 university presses and scholarly societies. Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and others.

Find Scores

Browse Scores and CD's on the second floor of the USM Gorham Library.

Search for Scores and CD's in the library or through interlibrary loan the same way you would search for a book:

In URSUS click Advanced Search

Select to a specific Material Type, such as, Scores or Sound/Music

Go to MaineCAT to broaden your search if you can't find the item through URSUS.
Go to WorldCat to broaden your search even further if you can't find the item through MaineCAT.

Click on Advanced Search.
Next to "Limit type to" select "Musical Scores" or "Sound Recordings."

Additional score resources:

Find Audio

Library of Congress Online Audio Collections

Maine Music Box This link opens in a new window
The Maine Music Box contains digitized cover art and scores, music manuscripts, and a small number of accompanying mp3 synthesized sound files from five major printed music collections in Maine.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
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World's largest online classical music library offering streaming access to more than 39,000 CDs with more than 562,000 tracks. NML offers the catalogs of more than 50 classical, jazz and world music labels, including BIS, Chandos, CPO, Haenssler, Hungaroton, Marco Polo, Vanguard Classics, VOX, and Naxos. World music content is provided by ARC, Celestial Harmonies and others; and there is also jazz, film music, nostalgia, classic and contemporary rock content. Other resources offered by NML include synopses of over 700 operas, a pronunciation guide for composer and artist names and a glossary of musical terms. Search by composer, work and label; keyword search; or an advanced search engine with up to 10 combined search criteria. Music and recordings are streaming and may not be copied or downloaded. NML is updated monthly with approximately 500 new CDs. Users can create private playlists by clicking on the Playlist tab, then clicking on Sign-up to create a playlist account. Playlists can be accessed via a free iPhone app as well as the NML web site.

USM faculty may create and edit public playlists, which will be accessible to all USM users on the NML site under the “Playlist” tab. For information on how to login to create and edit playlists, USM faculty should contact William Sargent (william.sargent@maine.edu).