Music and Theatre Research Guide
Welcome to the Music and Theatre Research Guide. This guide is to assist students who are taking courses in the Luther College of Arts and Sciences, and can also assist students, faculty, and staff doing research in this area.
This Research Guide will provide information on the most relevant databases to search from, online periodicals we may subscribe to, and websites and open access options for this subject.
If you have questions or would like assistance with your research, please contact the Head Librarian at library@midlandu.edu.
Coverage of most academic areas including business, social sciences, general academic, and general sciences.
Directory of Open Access Journals
A large database of open access peer-reviewed journals and articles.
Online resource for everything education of all levels and specialties.
Covers all aspects of education published in the journal, book, and gray literature including dissertations and conference proceedings.
This database includes two Arts and Sciences collections with journals from subjects including the social sciences, education, law, criminology, history, etc.
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
A collection of journals providing information on psychology, psychiatry, mental health, etc.
Directory of Open Access Books
A large collection of open access eBooks
Collection of text from a wide range of academic disciplines.
Collection of eBooks with a wide range of subjects.
Features art talks, collection overviews, and information about the Cultural Institute and Art Project.
“Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world. Facts, insight and humor — in shareable bites.”
Information about music albums, songs, and artists, and reviews and ratings of albums, including new releases. Also includes clips and recommendations.
Directories, classes, and job listings.
Royal Opera House Collections Online
Explore the historic and performances of the Royal Opera House.
The sheet music in this digital collection has been selected from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University.
A catalog of all scores on CPDL.
An online bibliography of music and dance bibliographies and reference sources (both print and online). Select the category “music collection online” for free resources.
Musical Scores (Eastman School of Music)
Public domain scores available online.
Petrucci Music Library (IMSLP)
Links to public domain scores online.
Provides tools and services that promote access to and use of online sheet music collections by scholars, students, and the general public.
University of Tennessee Analysis Index
The Analysis Index provides access to program notes and descriptions or analyses of musical compositions in books owned by the UT Music Library.
Alan Lomax Sound Archive Online
The Sound Recordings catalog comprises over 17,400 digital audio files, beginning with Lomax’s first recordings onto (newly invented) tape in 1946 and tracing his career into the 1990s.
The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.
Library of Congress National Jukebox (1901 – 1925)
Historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings.
Free streaming radio to your computer or phone (with the Pandora app). You can create up to 100 unique “stations” and find songs with musical similarities to other artists and songs you are interested in.
Streaming radio station with channels based on genre/sound. Ad-free.
Listen to original compositions or create and share your own.
With the mobile app you can listen to artists, albums and playlists in shuffle mode. Or choose a ready-made playlist to suit your mood. On tablet and computer, you can play any song, any time.
- American String Teacher’s Association
- ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)
- College Music Society
- International Association for the Study of Popular Music
- International Double Reed Society
- Music Library Association
- MTNA–Music Teachers National Association
- National Association for Music Education
- National Association of Teachers of Singing
- Society for Music Theory
- Society for Seventeenth Century Music
- The Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI)
Sounds of English and IPA with key words. American and British.
An archive and directory of free, printable sheet music for singers and voice teachers. An emphasis is placed on standard classical and traditional repertoire. Includes downloadable IPA for German, French, Latin, and Italian songs.
Includes text readings of songs and arias by native speakers, phonetic transcription (IPA), translations into several languages, video tutorials, podcasts, webinars, diction tips, and diction lessons. Look under the “In Depth” tab for free content.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) chart
Download versions and sections of the IPA chart, freely available under a Creative Commons license from the International Phonetic Association.
These audio recordings are the words and text that appear in the illustrations contained in Part 2 of the Handbook and which demonstrate the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet to a wide variety of sound systems of languages of the world.
Phonetics Resources from the International Phonetics Association
Helpful resources for those new to phonetics.
A digital collection of Russian vocal music available for download. Every file comes with IPA, word-for-word translations, score with IPA, and spoken recordings of the text.
A collection of information about opera and operatic arias. Includes translations for many arias and aria texts for those that are not affected by copyright restrictions. Includes operatic sound files. Before purchasing additional sound files or scores, please check library databases.
The world’s largest reference archive of texts and translations of art songs and choral works. More than 150,000 vocal pieces have been catalogued and nearly 35,000 translations are available.
A compilation of Dr. Otto Bettmann’s life’s work and the United Press International Photo Archive, the Bettmann Archive offers stock photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries
Costume Collection at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of America
Digitized images from the 18th Century to the present. Browse or search.
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required. Please use the following source credit when reproducing an image: Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
Over 850,000 volumes in the public domain! Most of the volumes are full-text, however, there are some that are only searchable and lack full-text.
Google has scanned the entire run of Life Magazine and makes it freely available as part of its Google Books database.
Motley Collection of Theatre & Costume Design
Digitized images of materials housed in The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois. They include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric.
Over 70,000 digitized images of portraits from England’s National Portrait Gallery. Use the Advanced Search to search by location, person, artist, and more.
The complete digitized collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection, the National Museums of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
A working database providing online access to over 1.1 million catalog records and over 293,000 images of objects in the collection. Records vary in quality and reliability.