Research Guides: Music: Find Websites

Website Evaluation Tutorial

Website Evaluation Tutorial
If you're starting a research assignment and want to do a quick review on how to evaluate websites. Check out our online website evaluation tutorial.

Website Domain Types

.com – Commercial websites

Generally created by a business or corporation and is for profit.
Provides information on products or is motivated by sales.

.edu – Educational websites

Created by a college, university or grade school.
Information is provided for academic purposes.
Highly regulated and can only be owned by an educational organization.

.gov – Government websites

Created by local, state, and national goverments.
Information is provided for the public.
Highly regulated and can only be owned by a government organization.

.org – Organization website

Used by both non-profit organizations, for profit corporations and individuals.
Organization websites can be owned by a corporation and be sales motivated, owned by an individual or owned by a non-profit organization that provides information supporting a specific cause or viewpoint.
Carefully evaluate non-profit organizations as they can have a particular viewpoint on an issue, so the information they provide can be biased or slanted in order to support their viewpoint.

Guides for writing about Music

Music Research Guide: Writing and Citing (Elon University)
Lists citation styles used in music with weblinks to examples and citation web resources.

Song Indexes

Song Index: California Library Systems
"The California Library System Cooperative Song Index contains 145,000 song titles (mostly popular music) from 1,500 sheet music collections (song books, magazines, and other collections). It indexes the collections of the California Library System Reference Centers and some of the libraries in the system. It is maintained by the San Joaquin Valley Information Service."
The Folk Song Index; an Oberland College Libraries and Sing Out! Collaboration
An index to traditional folk songs of the world with an emphasis on English-language songs. Each entry includes the song title, first line of chorus, first line of verse, and full bibliographic information on the source. The index contains over 62,000 entries, and, to date indexes over 2,400 anthologies.
UT Song Index (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
The UT Song Index database provides access to about 50,000 songs in more than 1,500 published song anthologies owned by the George F. DeVine Music Library at the University of Tennessee, located in Knoxville. Use this citation index to determine which anthologies contain the song(s) you need. Does not include song lyrics or music, but information about the book the song can be found in.

Classical Music Web Resources

The Classical Music Navigator
This site provides access to linked information about types, composers, and music of classical composers. See links at top for composers, geographical locations, index of forms and styles, and glossary.
Music-web International
Large repository of classical music reviews, going back to 1998, free to public. Also a newer section of jazz CD reviews. Musicweb International was founded by Dr Len Mullenger in 1995, as a website for the William Alwyn Society at the University of Coventry. More than 40,000 reviews in the archive with new ones posted weekly. Searchable, or browse by month and year.

Recommended Websites

Dolmetsch Online Music Dictionary
A free, authoritative source for quick definitions of musical terms.
Show Music On Record (Library of Congress)
A searchable database, based on the Reference book by Jack Raymond.
Performing Arts Encyclopedia
Explore music, theater, and dance at the Library of Congress
OnMusic: Dictionary of Musical Terms
OnMusic Dictionary is the successor of former Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Extensive database of musical terms and definitions. Browse the alphabetical listing at top, or search for terms, composers, or musical periods.

Song Lyrics

The Aria Database
The Aria Database is a collection of information about opera and operatic arias. The database holds information on the complete operatic aria collections of Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, Wagner, and Puccini as well as the partial collections of over 50 other composers. The database also includes translations for many arias and aria texts for those not under copyright, and sound files for some operas.
IPA Source
IPA Source is the web's largest library of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions and literal translations of opera arias and art song texts. Now with over 12477 titles, in Latin, Italian, German, and French with IPA transcriptions in PDF format.
The LiederNet Archive
The LiederNet Archive is the world's largest reference archive of texts and translations of art songs and choral works. The site contains 152,374 vocal pieces which have been cataloged. 33,193 translations are available.

Instrument Web Resources

MinimUk
MINIM-UK (Musical Instruments Interface for Museums and Collections) is the largest virtual collection of historically significant musical instruments in the UK, led by the Royal College of Music. Browse by instrument family, collection, or search for instrument type.
Musical Instrument Museums Online
MIMO is the world's largest freely accessible database for information on musical instruments held in public collections. The database currently contains the records of 64070 instruments. Click on 'Instrument Families" to browse images and descriptions of instruments from different collections.
Yale Collection of Musical Instruments
The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments comprises nearly one thousand objects including instruments, accessories and related items, the majority of which document the Western European and American art music traditions. A growing minority represents the cultures and traditions of Asia, Africa and South America.
Vienna Symphonic Library: Instrumentology
The site contains a section on instrumentology, with the history of musical instruments. Browse woodwinds, brass, string, and percussion instruments with histories and descriptions.

Historical Music and Ethnomusicology Web Resources

Medieval and Renaissance Instruments (Iowa State University)
From the ISU website, Department of Music and Theater. The university hosts a music troupe, Musica Antiqua, which features medieval and Renaissance music. This site features the history and descriptions of musical instruments used in the performances.
Ethnomusicology Musical Instrument Collection (Uni of Washington)
The University of Washington Ethnomusicology Division houses over 400 musical instruments from around the world. The digitized images in the musical instrument database are intended for educational and instructional use.
The Medieval Academy of America: Medieval Digital Resources
Browse alphabetical listing, or seach under 'music' to find specifically music resources. The Medieval Digital Resources website is a project of the Medieval Academy of America, the largest organization in North America promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies. The project aims to provide access to websites that contain content of interest to medievalists.
Characteristics of Ancient Music: An Introduction
Overview of the history and development of ancient music. Blog entries are written by experts in the field. Justin Wildridge is a media composer and multi-instrumentalist who holds a Doctorate in musical composition from the University of Nottingham.
Online Archive of Music Theory in Latin (Indiana University)
The Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML) aims to give free access to and make searchable every known Latin text on music from the late antiquity to the seventeenth century. Primarily an aid to musicological research, and for anyone interested in the broader intersections of music, humanities and the sciences within the Western tradition. The TML has been compiled from public domain and copyrighted materials.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Music in the Renaissance
Overview of the development of music in the Renaissance, with descriptions of instruments. A longer essay on music in the Renaissance, and other music related artworks such as illuminated manuscripts in the collection.

Evaluating Websites for Use for Research Assignments

Are you considering using a website for a research assignment?

Not all websites are appropriate for academic research and you need to examine them carefully in order to determine if the information is accurate, credible, and supports your research assignment.

Websites can be created by anyone and facts, images, and videos can be easily altered. Websites have to be carefully evaluated for use in your research assignments. Also be sure to ask your instructor if they will accept a website as a source for your research assignment.

There are countless websites available on various topics, but how do you determine what websites are the best to use? There are four main questions you want to ask yourself when critically examining a website in order to determine if it is appropriate for your research assignment:

WHO created the website?

WHAT type of website is it and what is the website's domain?

WHEN was the information on the website last updated?

WHY was the website created?

WHO created the website?

What company, organization or person created the website? Was the information posted by a business, a researcher in the field, or a layperson?
Is the author a subject specialist in their field, what is their educational background, and have they published books or articles on the topic?
Is there contact information for the creator or sponsor of the site such as an email address or a phone number?
Anyone can create a website or blog and post whatever information they want, whether it is true or not, so having contact information available shows that the website is more credible and accountable. Hint: Best place to look for the website creator's information is at the bottom or top of the page or under the About, Information, Mission or FAQs (frequently asked questions) section of the website.

WHAT type of website is it and WHAT is the website's domain?

There are certain types of websites that are highly regulated and tend to be more appropriate for research assignments, such as websites with the .edu and .gov domains. That is because educational .edu and government .gov websites can only be issued to an educational organization or a government organization and their content is under more scrutiny and oversight. They can provide original research and information on that topic for government and academic purposes and are not motivated by sales, but educational .edu and government .gov websites can still have bias or a particular viewpoint on a topic. For example, if you look at https://www.whitehouse.gov/ The White House website you can see that all the information is government related and there are no ads on the site.

Keep in mind that any website you use for research purposes should always be carefully evaluated, even if it is a .edu or .gov website.

WHEN was the information on the website last updated?

How current the information is on a website or when it was last updated is dependent on your research topic. Sometimes your professor will ask that you use sources from the last few years.
If you are researching a current, controversial issue, you need to have the most up to date information. Especially if your topic is related to changes in the law or recent scientific discoveries.
Try looking at the bottom of the webpage or the top of the article to see when the information was posted or last updated.
Also look on the webpage for links to references and articles that show where the information came from and make sure to click on the links to see if they actually work.

WHY was the website created?

Examining the motives of the website creator will help you to determine if there is a particular viewpoint or bias in providing that information. For example commercial websites, such as a .com or .net, are generally going to be motivated to sell you something or to advertise their product, so you need to be aware of that in terms of determining if the website's information is accurate and appropriate to use for a research assignment.

Consider why the author posted the information on the website. Critically thinking about why the information was posted, helps you determine if the website is appropriate to use for your research assignment:

Inform - the author is simply stating informational facts.
Explain - the author is explaining a subject.
Entertain - the author is attempting to entertain the reader.
Persuade - the author is striving to change your point of view on a topic
Sell - the author is trying to get you to purchase something

Google Advanced Search

Quick Tip: If you are searching Google for a website with a specific domain, such as a .gov or .edu, when you type in your search add "site:" and the domain type at the end of your search term. For example, if you wanted to find government websites on gun control, type in "gun control site:.gov". Or if you wanted to specifically search for non-profit websites that had information on wildlife, type in "wildlife site:.org".

Google Advanced Search
Use to specify website domain when searching, such as .gov sites for government information.