LibGuides: Writing Program Notes: Doing the Research

Library Catalog

You can find books, E-Books, scores, CDs, DVDs, and streaming video in the library’s music collection that can help you research your composers and comopositions. Just use the library catalog, Primo Pathfinder, for your searches.

Use subject searching for the composer.

Here are some additional subjects to use.

Music history

This will allow you to see information about what was going on in the musical world when your composer lived and wrote their music.

Music -- Historiography -- Handbooks, manuals, etc

Musical criticism -- Authorship -- Handbooks, manuals, etc

Sound recordings -- Reviews

You can also search for “Program Notes” and Music. The results can provide you with program notes from the CDs in the library's collection.

Online Databases

The library's subscription databases can be used to find articles and reviews. The following is a brief list of databases that can assist you in your research. Go to the library's Database LibGuide and select Music Databases to see the complete list.

Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window This is a good place to start for finding information about your composers
Music Index Online This link opens in a new window Featuring digitized content from 1970 to the present, the Music Index contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts of articles about music, musicians and the music industry for more than 480 periodicals. It also provides selective coverage for more than 200 periodicals.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window Look at the "liner notes" for the recordings. A wealth of information can be found here.
JSTOR (Journal STORage) This link opens in a new window JSTOR provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. Subjects covered include: African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, feminist studies, film studies, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, science, Slavic studies, sociology, and statistics.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary database designed for academic institutions. The database offers information in nearly every area of academic study, including arts, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, ethnic studies, engineering, language and linguistics, literature, medical sciences, philosophy, physics, psychology, religion, social sciences, and more.
- This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window A collection of over 400 electronic scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from nearly 100 not-for-profit publishers. Back issue archives are available, with some titles beginning with volumes as early as 1993.