General Resources
New to music research? Consider starting at the Music History Research Guide where you will learn strategies for finding and utilizing reference sources, books, articles, scores, audio, video, and other formats available from University Libraries.
Databases for Reference and Research
Reference sources are designed to provide users with quick and authoritative background information on a given subject. They are the ideal place to familiarize yourself with a subject and its existing literature, although they should never be the culmination of your research process. Databases collect scholarly articles and information, and they can direct you to academic journals available from the Libraries. A complete list of databases can be found at the Libraries website. The following reference sources and research databases are all available online, although log-in might be required off-campus.
Online Databases for Music Reference and Research:
Many journals can be found in multiple online databases while others are in-print at Bracken Library. Click here to search for a specific journal title, including online and physical locations. Use the filters on the left and the search bar above to narrow your results. You can also download the browser extension LibKey Nomad to eliminate paywalls you might encounter, if you find an article on Google, Wikipedia, or a publisher's website.
How Books are Organized
The Music Collection at University Libraries uses Library of Congress Classification, or LCC, for organizing books and scores on the shelves. This system, maintained by the national library of the United States and utilized by libraries across the country and around the world, groups together items on similar subjects. Each item is then assigned a unique call number which combines alphabetical and numerical characters. These features are designed to make browsing library collections easier for users and librarians alike. Tip: Enter the first part of a call number into OneSearch to see all items in a given section.
Call Numbers for Music Performance:
ML 76 Competitions, prizes, etc.
ML 159 - 3785 History and criticism
ML 385 - 429 Biography
ML 394 - 402 Collective. Performers
ML 416 - 419 Instrumentalists
ML 420 Singers
ML 421 Performing groups
ML 422 Conductors
ML 457 Interpretation. Performance practice
ML 458 Conducting
ML 459 - 1380 Instruments and instrumental music
ML 700 - 747 Piano. Music and playing
ML 850 - 897 Violin. Music and playing
[Find call numbers for "Music and playing" for each instrument]
ML 1400 - 3275 Vocal music
ML 3790 Music business
ML 3795 Music as a profession
ML 3820 Physiological aspects of music
ML 3830 - 3840 Psychology of music
MT 1 - 960 Instruction and study
MT 68 Improvisation. Accompaniment. Transposition
MT 75 Interpretation
MT 80 Embellishment
MT 85 Conducting. Score reading
MT 170 - 810 Instrumental techniques
MT 820 - 915 Singing and vocal technique
Print Reference and General Works
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The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance, Volume 1 (eBook)
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Volume 1 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct parts: Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, and Psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics dealing with musical development, talent development, and chapters dealing with learning strategies from a self-directed student learning perspective and high-impact teaching mindframes. Essential proficiencies include coverage of effective practice habits, through to the abilities of being able to play by ear, sight-read, improvise, memorize repertoire, and conduct and chapters that detail the highly personalized forms of musical expression that go beyond the printed notation or stylistic convention of the repetoire being performed. Chapters within the Performance Practices part cover some of the most fundamental aspects of performance practices from Baroque through to New Music repertoire and include chapters dealing with how emotions might be generated as a form of historically informed performance practice, and how creativity unfolds in the real-time dynamics of musical performance. The Psychology part concerns characteristics and individual differences in human behavior, cognition, emotion, and wellness. Across chapters in this part, several common threads and themes are evident: our relationships with music itself and what it means to become and to be a musician, the tensions that can arise between the joy of music and the hard work required to develop musical skills, and the intimate connection between music performance and our social and emotional lives.
Call Number: Oxford AcademicPublication Date: 2022 -
The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance, Volume 2 (eBook)
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Volume 2 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct parts: Enhancements, Health and Wellbeing, Science, and Innovations. Chapters on the popular Feldenkrais method and Alexander technique open the volume, and these lead to chapters on peak performance and mindfulness, stage behavior, impression management and charisma, enhancing music performance appraisal, and how to build a career and the skills and competencies needed to be successful. The part dealing with health and wellbeing surveys the brain mechanisms involved in music learning and performing and musical activities in people with disabilities, performance anxiety, diseases and health risks in instrumentalists, hearing and voice, and finally, a discussion of how to promote a healthy related lifestyle. The first six chapters of the Science part cover the basic science underlying the operation of wind, brass, string instruments, and the piano, and two chapters covering the solo voice and vocal ensembles. The final two chapters explain digital musical instruments and the practical issues that researchers and performers face when using motion capture technology to study movement during musical performances. The four chapters of the Innovations part address the types of technological and social and wellbeing innovations that are reshaping how musicians conceive their performances in the twenty-first century.
Call Number: Oxford AcademicPublication Date: 2022 -
Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing (eBook)
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Molly Gebrian applies the science of learning and memory to practicing and performing, giving musicians the tools to learn music more effectively and experience greater confidence on stage. Researchers working in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience have discovered many important principles about how the brain learns new information, retains this information both short- and long-term, and how to make this learning reliable in high-pressure situations like performances. Musicians often choose practice strategies that don't align well with the optimal ways in which the brain learns, leading to frustration while practicing and inconsistency in performance. The author offers a practical guide, using accessible language for non-scientists and non-academics, to help musicians get more out of their practicing by applying this research.
Call Number: Oxford Scholarship OnlinePublication Date: 2024
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.