Research Guides: Music: Scholarly and Popular Articles

How do I find articles?

It's Easy!

1) Search for articles in more than one database, and use the databases suggested by your subject librarian.

2) Know that some databases index full article text, some index abstracts, and some index only citations. All are useful!

3) Try searching several different keywords. Don't be shy! Keep a keyword list and keep trying.

4) Once you find an article, click "view full text" or "PDF" to read it.

5) Don't see a full-text link? Click SU Links to find full-text in another database, find it in print in the library, or request the article through inter-library loan.

How do I know that an article is peer-reviewed?

Many databases have a search limiter that says "Peer Reviewed."

Some databases instead have a limiter of "Scholarly Journals," or "Scholarly Articles." The majority of articles that are scholarly are peer-reviewed, but not necessarily all of them.

To confirm if an article is peer reviewed, look up the journal name in:

Ulrichsweb
Peer reviewed is also called "Refereed." Look in the Refereed column to see if a journal title has this status

Music Criticism

music criticism list
In addition to searching in periodical databases, there are collections of music reviews and articles that are reprinted as books and ebooks. This file has a representative list of some, as well as famous critics to search for.

Databases: Find Articles and Reviews

Music Scholarly Literature Databases

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Music coverage, 1800 to present
Scholarly journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings.
Click "SU Links" for full text of articles. Copy/paste book titles into Libraries Search to find the full text of book chapters.
Music Index
Music coverage, 1965-present
Indexes scholarly journal articles, trade journal articles, and some popular music journalism
uniquely indexes "The Instrumentalist" and "Journal of Singing"
Music Periodicals Database
1874-present; most content from 1990-present
JSTOR
Multi-disciplinary, full-text indexed
Indexes scholarly journal articles. Contains journals from multiple disciplines outside of music, but it has significant music content.

Additional Scholarly Databases in Related Fields

ProQuest Arts
Search portal for multiple ProQuest databases in design, film, art, music, theater, and humanities.
ProQuest Social Sciences
for many social sciences topics, including women's and gender studies, African American Studies, LGBTQ+ studies, sociology, political science, music cognition, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and music outside of European and American traditions
Performing Arts Periodicals Database
for dance, film, television, theater, circus, and performance reviews
AnthroSource
For music cultures outside of European and American art music (ethnomusicology, anthropology)
Education Source
For music education
FIAF: International Index to Film Periodicals
for film music
Film and Television Literature Index
For film music, television, and reviews
SAGE Journals Online
for many social sciences topics, including music education, music cognition, music therapy, and socio-political topics

Ulrich's Periodicals Directory
Ulrichsweb is an easy to search source of detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals (also called serials) of all types: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Music Periodicals Database
Music coverage, full-text indexed
also includes scholarly journal literature
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
Music, film, theater, entertainment coverage, 1880-2000
Full-text and full-color page image scans for US & UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater.
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.

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.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
Music, film, theater, entertainment coverage, 1880-2000
Full-text and full-color page image scans for US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Music coverage, 1800 to present, citations, abstracts, no full text.
RILM searches fully-indexed citations and abstracts for scholarly journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. It features a robust and specialized music subject index.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
Discover the working methods of Romantic poets and trace the evolution of celebrated verse in this powerful digital resource. Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.

Take a moment to browse the rich collection of fine art pieces which include works by such eminent artists as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Benjamin Robert Haydon. This evocative collection vividly brings to life the landscape that inspired literary creativity and poetic genius.

All of the documents are digitised in colour and include: verse manuscripts, printed manuscripts, prose manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps.

ProQuest News and Newspapers
Search portal for multiple news and newspaper databases including Alt-PressWatch, Canadian Newsstream, Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, Global Breaking Newswires, International Newsstream, US Newsstream, and ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Text visualization options for selected newspapers are available on the TDM Studio platform; please see the ProQuest TDM Studio guide for access information.
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.
America's Historical Newspapers
Page image historical American newspapers covering 1690-1876, and titles included in Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, with post 1820 content from the American Antiquarian Society.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global
Index to dissertations and theses from around the world rom 1743 to the present day and with full text for many primarily from 1997.

Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology free web index; citations only good for finding what doctoral students are currently writing about
more...less...
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology (DDM) is an international database of bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, as well as in related musical, scientific, and humanistic disciplines. Currently containing over 14,000 records, including the corrected and updated contents of all earlier printed editions of Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology and supplements contributed from musicological centers throughout the world, the database is fully searchable.