Free Online Music Resources - Music Resources - Free online - Research Guides at The University of Virginia's College at Wise

About this guide

This website is a guide to digitized scores, recordings, websites devoted to music theory and music history organizations, etc.. All of the links are freely available via the internet and none require a personal or library subscription for access. This page is a work-in-progress so please feel free to email your suggestions.

General Music Resources

MusRef

A site and blog devoted to music and dance bibliography and reference, ranging from discographies and catalogs of composer works to reference information about music exhibits and/or collections. It currently includes over 7,000 bibliographic references, several of which offer detailed annotations to help guide the user. This online resource also offers basic reference guides to facilitate arts-related research projects.
Performing Arts Encylopedia (PAE)

The Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE) is a guide to performing arts resources at the Library of Congress. The PAE provides information about the Library's unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, and other materials. Users can find digitized items from the collections, special Web presentations on topics and collections, articles and biographical essays, databases for performing arts resources, information on concerts at the Library, and a special Performing Arts Resource Guide which contains entries for hundreds of Library collections, websites, databases and exhibits.
Musical America Worldwide

For over 100 years, Musical America Worldwide has been the voice of the performing arts industry. Musical America provides the digital and print touchpoints for performing arts professionals to reach out to each other to further their art and their businesses. This website also includes original copies of music and arts related articles in newspapers, magazines, and directories from 1905 on, and thousands of priceless photographs, among other useful resources.

ClassicalNet: The Internet's Premier Classical Music Source

"ClassicalNet" is a website devoted to the study and appreciation of Western classical music. It offers extensive book reviews (e.g.: of music theory and music history textbooks and composer biographies), CD/DVD performance reviews, and live concert reviews, etc. Additionally, "ClassicalNet" offers several short articles on highly-varied topics, including interviews. This website also offers a basic overview of period histories and a fairly comprehensive list of well-known composers and their works. One of its highlights is a frequently updated list of obscure pieces by both well and lesser-known composers.

African-American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
African American Music Reference contains 50,000 pages of text and 17,000 pages of liner notes that offers he first comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
Classical Music Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Classical Music Reference Library brings together more than 40,000 pages of essential reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music, in a unified online database. Included are the authoritative reference titles Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music.
Classical Scores Library This link opens in a new window
Classical Scores Library is a series of three volumes and contains the most important classical music scores, manuscripts, and previously unpublished material, allowing for the study and analysis of more than 45,000 musical scores. Classical Scores Library, Volumes I, II, and III serve as an integral resource for music students and faculty, encompassing all major classical musical genres and time periods from medieval to contemporary. With full, piano, and vocal scores, this comprehensive collection will enhance the study of music history, performance, appreciation, and theory for a variety of scholars.
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music This link opens in a new window
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online is a comprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples. More than 9,000 pages of material, combined with entries by more than 700 expert contributors from all over the world, make this the most complete body of work focused on world music.
Jazz Music Library This link opens in a new window
Listen online to thousands of jazz recordings.
Music and Performing Arts Online This link opens in a new window
Musical and Performing Arts Online delivers the largest, most diverse catalog of music content in the world for students, scholars, and patrons of the arts. The multimedia resource features works from thousands of respected partners, covers hundreds of genres from alternative to zydeco and from alternative dance to operatic arias, and encompasses a wide range of content formats - including scores, reference, and high definition audio and video.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
A Large collection of classical and world music from the Naxos and Marco Polo labels. Recordings plus descriptive information. Note: Please logout at the end of your session.
Opera in Video This link opens in a new window
Opera in Video contains five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the world's best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work's importance to the operatic cannon.
Popular Music Library This link opens in a new window
Popular Music Library from Alexander Street contains a wide range of popular music from around the world, including hundreds of thousands of tracks from major genres in pop music, including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more.