Research Guides: Music: Primary Sources

Primary Sources for Music

Types of primary sources used in music research include Page of Syracuse Gradual :

manuscripts and early printed editions of scores
marked scores or parts from early performances
facsimiles of manuscripts or letters
audio or visual recordings
letters or diaries of musicians and those associated with the performance and consumption of music
newspapers and magazines from the time of a performance
musical instruments and equipment
field recordings, interview transcriptions, and folklore collections

Digitized Primary Source Databases at SU Libraries

Classical Scores Library
Scores, including full scores, study scores, piano and vocal scores, and piano reductions, from the Renaissance to the 21st century.
Met Opera on Demand: Student Access
HD videos of Metropolitan Opera performances, including telecasts from 1970 through 2000, and including radio broadcasts from 1936.
Medici.tv
Streaming video of performances and documentaries, including concerts, operas, ballets, and master classes by numerous performers, composers, and companies.
Alexander Street Music and Performing Arts
Unified search interface for all music products from Alexander Street Press, including digital scores, streaming audio, and streaming video. Coverage spans Western classical, American popular, world music, folk, jazz, ethnographic recordings, ballet, modern dance, documentaries, and more. Collections searched include American Music, Classical Scores Library, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, Jazz Music Library, Popular Music Library, Smithsonian Global Sound, and music and dance content from Academic Video Online.
Organ Cinema
Selected streaming video titles from the Filmed Encyclopedia of the Organ and its Music
Naxos Music Library
Limited to fifteen (15) simultaneous users.
Streaming audio of Western art music/classical music. Includes Naxos, Marco Polo and Da Capo catalogues, among other record labels, as well as details about works, and a glossary.
Naxos Music Library Jazz
Limited to five (5) simultaneous users.
Streaming audio of jazz recordings from the Naxos label as well as Blue Note Records, Warner Jazz, EMI, and Fantasy Jazz, among other record labels.
HathiTrust Digital Library
Log in to enable all features.Digitized print volumes, some of which are public domain. Includes almost half the print holdings at SU Libraries, with full-text searching across the entire repository, full-text PDF downloads for items in public domain or not otherwise under copyright, and full-text access to brittle out-of-print items in SU Libraries.
Login has been updated to the new SU Microsoft SSO. This may result in a loss of access to personal collections. Read more about how to recover access.
Early English Books Online: EEBO
Titles listed in Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).
Early European Books
Books published between 1450-1700 in Europe, including content from collection partners the Danish Royal Library, the National Central Library in Florence, the National Library of France, the National Library of the Netherlands, and the Welcome Library in London. Includes page images, lettering, binding, and more.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online: ECCO
English language books, pamphlets, broadsides, and more published between 1701 and 1800, covering numerous subjects.
Loeb Classical Library
Classic texts in Greek and Latin with English translations on facing pages.
Past Masters
Classic texts in philosophy.
Patrologia Latina
Digital edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865), 221 volumes.
Literary Manuscripts: Berg
19th century manuscripts, including early editions, annotations, correspondence, sketches and more by Victorian authors. From the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection at the New York Public Library.
Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700
Manuscripts of writing by women from the 16th and 17th centuries including poetry, prose, drama, account books, medical writing, travel writing and more; produced in association with the Perdita Project, based at the University of Warwick and previously Nottingham Trent, with content from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, The Edinburgh University Library, the Cambridge University Library.

RIPM - Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals Full Text (EBSCO)
Retrospective coverage of literature related to music history and culture from 1760 through the mid-1900s. Includes articles, reviews, illustrations, music examples, advertisements and more.
RIPM Preservation Series: European & North American Periodicals
RIPM Preservation Series contains the collection titles "European and North American Periodicals," including over 100 full-text music journals. The periodicals in the collection deal extensively with musical life in the United States as well as Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain and the U.K. Content does not overlap with RILM or with RIPM Full Text.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database
Scholarly and popular performing arts journals and magazines, conference papers, covering the arts and entertainment industry, dance, film, television, drama, theater, musical theater, storytelling, opera, puppetry, magic and more; includes interviews, discographies, and reviews.
Rock's Backpages Library
Archive of rock music writing, including articles and reviews, from the 1960's to the present, searchable by artist and genre.
Rolling Stone Archive
Page images of Rolling Stone from 1967 to present.
Vogue Archive
Page images of U.S. Vogue from 1892 to present.

Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
Produced in conjunction with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, this collection includes audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence, and ephemera collected between 1905 and 2019.
AM Explorer
Search across publisher Adam Matthew’s primary-source collections of digitized archival content from archives around the world on numerous subjects, including but not limited to literature, history, social issues, cultural studies, global trade, news, and more.

Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters
A collection of medieval Latin letters to and from women dating from the 4th to the 13th centuries, presented in the original Latin as well as in English translation. Organized by the names and biographies of the women writers or recipients, and supplemented with biographical sketches, descriptions of letters' subject matter, and contextual historical information.

Black Studies Center
Scholarly essays, articles, historical newspaper articles, related to Black Studies, from fields such as literature, political science, sociology, philosophy, and religion.

Music ID
Music charts from Billboard and other international agencies, plus revenue data for recording sales, and impact metrics. Includes the three modules Data, Revenue and Impact.
ProQuest Congressional
Publications related to or from the United State Congress and the Executive branch from 1789 to the present that include laws, legislative histories, House and Senate hearings, bills and reports, the Congressional Record, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, plus Executive Orders, Proclamations and other documents related to the presidency.
Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online
Medieval and early modern sources from Great Britain, 1100-1800, including state papers, manuscripts and more.

Historical Newspapers

African American Newspapers : the 19th Century.
African American newspapers published during the 1800s; includes full page image content.
American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside
Open access collection of newspapers from U.S. prisons; a Reveal Digital project.
American Underworld: The Flash Press
Newspapers from 1826-1876, covering topics such as crime, sports, urban life scandal, and more, from the American Antiquarian Society collections.
America's Historical Newspapers
Fully searchable, cover-to-cover reproductions of more than one million pages from more than 650 historical American newspapers. Northern and Old Northwest newspapers are covered up until 1876. Southern newspaper coverage stops by the 1820s. Database content is based on Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820. Post 1820 content has been supplemented by nearly two million issues added by the American Antiquarian Society.
Atlanta Daily World
Full-page images scan of this influential African American newspaper, from 1932 to 2010
Black Studies Center
Scholarly essays, articles, historical newspaper articles, related to Black Studies, from fields such as literature, political science, sociology, philosophy, and religion.
Boston Globe
Full-page and article images from the Boston Globe. Currency of this historical access is updated periodically and covers 1872 up to 32 years of the current date.
Chicago Defender Archive
The Chicago Defender (1905-1975) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. BSC provides the full text backfile, from 1910 to 1975, of the influential black newspaper The Chicago Defender.
Chicago Tribune
Full-page and article images from the Chicago Tribune. Currency of this historical access is updated periodically and covers 1849 up to 10 years of the current date.
Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896-2016
Digitized, page image access to the Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896-2016 newspaper, and cruise-ship Daily Mail Atlantic Edition, from 1923—1931.
Documenting White Supremacy and its Opponents in the 1920s
National, regional, and local newspapers published around the 1920s in the United States, documenting the voices of multiple organizations that either opposed or supported white supremacy and nationalism.
Eighteenth Century Journals
Integrated access to the Hope Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Eighteenth Century Journals I), the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center University of Texas (Eighteenth Century Journals II) and the British Newspaper Library at Colindale, London and the Cambridge University Library (Eighteenth Century Journals III). It brings together rare journals printed between c1685 and 1815, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life.
Independent Voices
Open access alternative press and underground newspapers, magazines and journals from the 1960s to 1980s, including feminist, LGBT, minority, campus, community, GI, right-wing, and small literary presses.
NewspaperARCHIVE.com
New York state newspapers, including Syracuse newspapers, such as the Post Standard, Syracuse Herald, and more. Some of that content dates from the late 1700s.
New York Amsterdam News
Full-page images scan of this influential African American newspaper, from 1922 to 2010
NK News Pro
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), including information news and analysis.
Pittsburgh Courier
Full-page images scan of this influential African American newspaper, from 1911 to 2010
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Sentinel
This historical newspaper provides researchers with online, searchable first-hand accounts and coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Coverage: 1934 - 2010
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Full-page and article images from the Los Angeles times under all its title variants from 1881 to 2001.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times
The New York Times (1851-2013) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal
Known globally for its coverage of business and economics. Offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue of this publication in 1889. Currency of this historical access is updated periodically and extends to within about 18 years of the current date.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post
Access to over 100 years of political reporting and other news within the first newspaper in Washington DC to publish seven days per week. Fully imaged page scans from 1877. Currency of this historical access is updated periodically and extends to within about 17 years of the current date.
Service Newspapers of World War Two
Service newspapers from the British Library; Imperial War Museums; US Army Heritage and Education Center, US Army War College; Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand; Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage.

Finding Other Sources

IMAPSC: International Music Archives and Primary Source Collections
This service hosted at Brigham Young University aims to be the central resource for finding archival collections related to music, but is not comprehensive at this time.
Cecilia
A guide to music collections in archives, libraries, and museums in the UK and Ireland.
ArchiveGrid
ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
Discovery
Catalog of The National Archives of the UK. Lists records pertaining to Britain and British history and held at The National Archive, at other archives and institutions across the UK, and at some archives and institutions abroad.
Digital Public Library of America
Search publicly available materials from America's libraries, archives, and museums.

Physical Primary Sources at SU

Many scores and recordings in the circulating physical collection are primary sources including manuscript facsimiles, audio recordings, and early printings. The search terms --facsimile or --sources can help you find them. Beyond these, the SCRC holds everything from medieval music manuscripts to an Oscar!

The SCRC's Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive
Founded in 1963, this collection of sound recordings and related items has grown to over 500,000 items -- formats from the earliest experimental recordings on tinfoil to modern digital media -- housed in a specially designed, climate-controlled facility on campus. Music genres represented include classical, jazz, popular, folk, country, and ethnic. Non-musical recordings feature the voices of political leaders, philosophers, poets, and famous actors, as well as early radio broadcasts.
The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC)
Located on the 6th floor of Syracuse University's Bird Library, the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) advances scholarship and learning by collecting and preserving rare books, manuscripts, and other primary source materials. SCRC's collections span time and format, from cuneiform tablets to born digital media. Collection areas include activism and social reform, architecture and design, popular culture, photography, and the history of recorded sound.

Facsimilies in SU Libraries

There are a few ways to locate facsimile images of manuscripts and early editions in the stacks of the library. Many printed scores contain images of specific pages of manuscripts in order to facilitate study of the work, and there are also entire manuscript works reproduced as a printed score.

Search Libraries Search for the composer name and some keywords from a work title, plus the word facsim* . That is the abbreviation for the word "facsimile." Shortening the word to "facsim" and putting an asterisk after it is called stemming. That keyword will bring back any results that contain fascim, facsims, facsimile, and facsimiles.
Browse the library shelves in Library of Congress class ML94-96. This is where entire manuscripts that are re-printed in facsimile editions are shelved in the library.
Locate your work in a scholarly collected works edition. There are often images of manuscripts published within those scholarly editions.

Digital Scores Online: Specific Composers or Libraries

Bach Gesellschaft Edition: Collected Works
Beethoven Works, Beethoven-Haus Bonn Digital Archives
Chopin Early Editions: University of Chicago
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music Free registration leads to facsimiles, theses and bilbiography related to Medieval music manuscripts.
Early Music Online -- from the British Library
Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
Harvard University Loeb Music Library Digital Scores and Libretti
Juilliard School of Music A collection of autograph manuscripts, sketches, proofs, and first editions of major composers held at the Juilliard School.
Mozart Works, Barenreiter Edition
Includes digitized scores, letters, and other documents
Munich DigitiZation Center
Schumann Autograph Manuscripts -- University Library Bonn
The Bizet Catalogue
This is primarily a list of Bizet's works, providing essential information about the history and content of each one. It gives information on manuscript and printed sources, on documentary materials relating to the composition, performance and publication of each work, and is intended to provide a full historical documentation of Bizet's work as composer and transcriber.
Brahms-Institut
The Brahms Institute is aimed at everyone who is interested in this important composer. As a competence center, the Brahms Institute is dedicated to the life, work and impact of Johannes Brahms.
Includes a good sized collection of the works of other composers including both Schumanns.
List of Online Digital Music Libraries
This wiki keeps growing with links to additional materials.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Historic American Sheet Music
The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of over 3000 pieces from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.
African American Sheet Music
The sheet music in this digital collection has been selected from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University. The full collection consists of approximately 500,000 items, of which perhaps 250,000 are currently available for use.
Gallica
Access the digital library from the Bibliothque Nationale of France. Includes a variety of primary source materials and public domain resources. Mainly in French.
Digital Scriporium
An image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in American libraries.
British Library Digital Collection
Access to thousands of digital manuscripts and audio recordings.
Stanford University Piano Roll Archive
This repository contains MIDI files extracted from scans of piano rolls collected by the Stanford Libraries, a majority coming from the Condon Collection. The SUPRA website contains links to the original scans of the rolls in the Libraries' digital repository, and this repository collects the individual MIDI files of notes extracted from each scan. Renderings of the expression MIDI files into audio recordings are also available. These can currently be listened to on the SUPRA website, and are downloadable at Stanford Digital Repository.
Music DH
On this website, you can browse or search an open-source bibliography of specialized digital resources and born-digital scholarship in music. Here you may tour the world of digital humanities in music, loosely interpreted. The entries in this directory were compiled over a period of three years: 2018-2021.
Eve
Listings are limited to open-access projects from which music may be downloaded and in some cases searched, analyzed, listened to, visualized, and re-edited.
Digital Resources for Musicology
This website provides links to substantial open-access projects of use to musicians and musicologists. With a burgeoning number of digital resources available, remembering titles of sites and pathways to them can be difficult. Digital Resources in Musicology (DRM) is organized topically and provides a rapid search tool for specialties within heterogeneous collections.
National Music Museum
At this time, the eMuseum includes instruments made before 1800 as well as instruments that are part of the Arne B. Larson Founding Collection and other select objects.
Projects related to the history of musical performance
Resources collected by the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Document Centers