Historical Recordings from the Library of Congress

The Historic American Sheet Music collection presents 3,042 pieces of sheet music drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, which holds an important, representative, and comprehensive collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century American sheet music. This selection presents a significant perspective on American history and culture through a variety of music types including bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, "Tin pan alley" songs, and songs from World War I. The collection is particularly strong in antebellum Southern music, Confederate imprints, and Civil War songs and music. Also included are piano music of marches, variations, opera excerpts, and dance music, including waltzes, quadrilles, polkas, etc. Cover illustrations represent an important, and in some cases almost unique, source of informa

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.

Band Music from the Civil War Era makes available examples of a brilliant style of brass band music that flourished in the 1850s in the United States and remained popular through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War. This online collection includes both printed and manuscript music (mostly in the form of "part books" for individual instruments) selected from the collections of the Music Division of the Library of Congress and the Walter Dignam Collection of the Manchester Historic Association (Manchester, New Hampshire). The collection features over 700 musical compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded examples of brass band music in performance.

For most of the nineteenth century, before the advent of phonograph and radio technologies, Americans learned the latest songs from printed song sheets. Not to be confused with sheet music, song sheets are single printed sheets, usually six by eight inches, with lyrics but no music. These were new songs being sung in music halls or new lyrics to familiar songs, like "Yankee Doodle" or "The Last Rose of Summer." Some of America's most beloved tunes were printed as song sheets, including "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Song sheets are an early example of a mass medium and today they offer a unique perspective on the political, social, and economic life of the time, especially during the Civil War. Some were dramatic, some were humorous; all of them had America joining together in song. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress holds 4291 song sheets. Included among these American songs are ninety-seven British song sheets from

The American Musicological Society was founded in 1934 to advance research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship. 3,600 individuals and 1,100 institutional subscribers from over forty nations participate in the Society.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a membership association of more than 435,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers of every kind of music. Through agreements with affiliated international societies, ASCAP also represents hundreds of thousands of music creators worldwide. ASCAP is the only U.S. performing rights organization created and controlled by composers, songwriters and music publishers, with a Board of Directors elected by and from the membership.

Founded in 1966, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings—in all genres of music and speech, in all formats, and from all periods.

Founded at Columbia College Chicago in 1983, The Center for Black Music Research is the only organization of its kind. It exists to illuminate the significant role that black music plays in world culture by serving as a nexus for all who value black music, by promoting scholarly thought and knowledge about black music, and by providing a safe haven for the materials and information that document the black music experience across Africa and the diaspora.

The College Music Society promotes music teaching and learning, musical creativity and expression, research and dialogue, and diversity and interdisciplinary interaction. A consortium of college, conservatory, university, and independent musicians and scholars interested in all disciplines of music, the Society provides leadership and serves as an agent of change by addressing concerns facing music in higher education.

Founded in 1973, the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) is America's leading guitar organization. The GFA provides its members the combined advantages of a guitar society, a library, a publisher, a continuing educational resource, and an arts council. Today the GFA is the largest multinational guitar organization; providing serious guitarists worldwide a full range of educational, literary and performance resources and opportunities. The Guitar Foundation of America is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and literary organization and is devoted to furthering the knowledge of and interest in the guitar and its music.

The International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) is a global network of women and men working to increase and enhance musical activities and opportunities and to promote all aspects of the music of women.

IASPM is an international organization established to promote inquiry, scholarship and analysis in the area of popular music. Founded in 1981, IASPM has grown into an international network of more that 700 members world-wide. On national and international levels, the organization's activities include conferences, publications, and research projects designed to advance an understanding of popular music and the processes involved in its production and consumption.

The International Musicological Society (IMS) was founded in 1927 in Basel, where it has its headquarters. It is a member of the Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines (CIPSH), a branch organization of the UNESCO. Its purpose is the ad­vance­ment of musicological research on the basis of international cooperation. Membership in IMS is open to all interested in musicological research, individuals as well as institutions, libraries and organizations.

he League of American Orchestras leads, supports, and champions America’s orchestras and the vitality of the music they perform. Its diverse membership of approximately 850 orchestras across North America runs the gamut from world-renowned symphonies to community groups, from summer festivals to student and youth ensembles. The only national organization dedicated solely to the orchestral experience, the League is a nexus of knowledge and innovation, advocacy, and leadership advancement for managers, musicians, volunteers, and boards. Its conferences and events, award-winning Symphony magazine, website, and other publications inform music lovers around the world about orchestral activity and developments. Founded in 1942 and chartered by Congress in 1962, the League links a national network of thousands of instrumentalists, conductors, managers and administrators, board members, volunteers, and business partners.

The Music Library Association provides a professional forum for librarians, archivists, and others who support and preserve the world’s musical heritage.

Founded in 1895, the Music Publishers Association is the oldest music trade organization in the United States, fostering communication among publishers, dealers, music educators, and all ultimate users of music.

MENC: The National Association for Music Education, among the world's largest arts education organizations, marked its centennial in 2007 as the only association that addresses all aspects of music education. Through membership of more than 75,000 active, retired, and pre-service music teachers, and with 60,000 honor students and supporters, MENC serves millions of students nationwide through activities at all teaching levels, from preschool to graduate school.

NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), commonly called NAMM in reference to the organization's popular NAMM trade shows, is the not-for-profit association that promotes the pleasures and benefits of making music and strengthens the $17 billion global music products industry. Our association—and our trade shows—serve as a hub for people wanting to seek out the newest innovations in musical products, recording technology, sound and lighting. NAMM's activities and programs are designed to promote music making to people of all ages.

The National Music Publishers’ Association is the largest U.S. music publishing trade association with over 2500 members. Its mission is to protect, promote, and advance the interests of music’s creators. The NMPA is the voice of both small and large music publishers, the leading advocate for publishers and their songwriter partners in the nation’s capital and in every area where publishers do business. The goal of NMPA is to protect its members’ property rights on the legislative, litigation, and regulatory fronts. In this vein, the NMPA continues to represent its members in negotiations to shape the future of the music industry by fostering a business environment that furthers both creative and financial success. The NMPA has remained the most active and vocal proponent for the interests of music publishers in the U.S. and throughout the world, a continuing tradition of which the association is very proud.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies. Its members are the music labels that comprise the most vibrant record industry in the world. RIAA® members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate recorded music produced and sold in the United States.

The mission of the Society for American Music is to stimulate the appreciation, performance, creation and study of American musics of all eras and in all their diversity, including the full range of activities and institutions associated with these musics throughout the world.

Founded in 1984, The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) is a non-profit national organization of composers, performers, and teachers of electro-acoustic music representing every part of the country and virtually every musical style. Electro-Acoustic music is a term used to describe those musics which are dependent on electronic technology for their creation and/or performance. Many members of SEAMUS, like Jon Appleton, the guiding light in the conception of the Synclavier, are recognized world leaders in their fields. All are dedicated to the use of the most advanced technology as the tools of their trade.

SEM is a U.S.-based organization with an international membership of over 1800 individuals dedicated to the study of all forms of music from diverse humanistic and social scientific perspectives. We examine music as central to human experience throughout space and time, and explore its profound relationship to cognition, emotion, language, dance, visual arts, spiritual belief, social organization, collective identity, politics, conflict and peace, economics, the physical body, and mental health.

The Society for Music Perception and Cognition is a not-for-profit organization for researchers and others interested in music perception and cognition.

The Society for Music Theory was founded in 1977. The Society holds annual meetings, publishes two journals (Music Theory Spectrum and Music Theory Online), and encourages scholarly excellence by giving awards for outstanding publications in music theory. We also work to increase the diversity of our discipline and to promote fruitful exchanges between music theorists, musicologists, performers, and scholars in other fields.

The Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) is a non-profit corporation registered in the State of Pennsylvania whose mission is to assist music educators in applying technology to improve teaching and learning in music.

Here you will meet 52 composers, conductors and instrumental performers - Africans, African Americans and Afro-Europeans. Many are alive today, but one lived 500 years ago! These artists are unknown to most of us, yet are so numerous this site can present only a fraction of them. They have made enduring contributions to Classical Music. Several have composed, conducted and performed Classical Music. Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) of Guadeloupe is one of those multi-talented musicians. Cuban classical guitarist Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) is another. Over 100 sound samples can be heard at the Audio page and at the biographical pages.

The Aria Database is a collection of information about opera and operatic arias. Besides providing basic information about each aria, the Database includes translations for many arias and aria texts for those that are not affected by copyright restrictions. The Database also provides access to a collection of operatic MIDI files to give visitors an idea of what each aria sounds like. Currently, the Database holds information on the complete operatic aria collections of Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, Wa

ARTSEDGE is the Kennedy Center's free digital resource for teaching and learning in, through and about the arts. Find images, audio stories, music, video clips and interactives.

The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE), housed at the Fine Arts Campus of New York City's Hunter College, was chartered as a charitable organization in the State of New York in 1983. It was founded by Alan Lomax to explore and preserve the world's expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement. Alan Lomax was a musicologist, writer and producer who spent his life capturing in sound, photographs, video and research what today is termed our "intangible heritage." The central value of his career was the promotion of cultural equity as the need for every culture to express and develop its distinctive heritage, believing it should be recognized as a fundamental human right. His "Appeal for Cultural Equity" anticipated by decades UNESCO's 2003 declaration to safeguard intangible oral heritage.

Musicians death notices as reported in the media from 1998-2007.

The free public domain sheet music library - 23,488 works · 57,892 scores · 3,121 composers.

The Juilliard Manuscript Collection is an extraordinary collection of over 140 priceless autograph manuscripts, sketches, engravers proofs, and first editions which were donated to the school in 2006 by Juilliard Board Chairman Bruce Kovner.

The MetOpera Database is updated five days a week during the opera season. Casts of the previous evening’s performance, or the previous weekend’s, should be current by 11:00 am Eastern Time the next day.

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music contains more than 62,500 pieces of historical sheet music registered for copyright: more than 15,000 registered during the years 1820-1860 and more than 47,000 registered during the years 1870-1885. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. The collection documents the attitudes and tastes of a bygone era

24,000 performances, 35,000 artists, 670 opera companies, ... "We believe that culture concerns everybody, and that information about
opera performance should be available to all".

OPERISSIMO CONCERTISSIMO is the world's most complete and constantly updated opera and concert database. Currently, the database covers the work of more than 4,300 artists, 7,400 composers with 36,400 of their works played in 340 opera houses around the world. Additionally, 250 agencies and some 55,200 recordings are searchable and linked as well.

Links to articles, lists, catalogs and databases concerning all aspects of the recorder worldwide. An ideal springboard for players, students, teachers, makers and researchers alike.

UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.

Among universities, Wesleyan University has one of the largest and most diverse collections of world musical instruments. It contains three classes of holdings: daily-use instructional instruments and sets of instruments (e.g. gamelan, Ghanian drums, steelband); instruments brought to Wesleyan by students, alumni and faculty; and donated instruments.

Music Titles: Approx. 67,640 titles (increase of about 4,100), with most coming from the printed sources indexed, and the large 4-5 CD compilations of early pre WW-II recordings. Music titles with any cross references number about 25,400, with about 12,000 of these being cross reference only titles.
Performers: Number around 27,000 , and this represents an increase of about 2100 names. About 640 names are cross references, mostly pseudonyms with a few for misspellings, etc.
Sources: Approximately 5,080 sources are indexed, with printed material numbering around 475.
Total performance/appearance listings for all sources and cross references comes to approx. 161,000, which represents an increase of about 12,000 entries. Cross reference only entries total nearly 30,000, or about 18.6% of the total.

The Museum Collections of the Louis Armstrong House Museum are available for online browsing. Please note: all images on this website are protected by copyright and are the exclusive property of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and may not be copied and/or used for any purpose without written consent. The photos in this Online Catalog are for reference use only.

Afropop Worldwide is a radio program and online magazine dedicated to music from Africa and the African Diaspora.

The James Koetting Ghana Field Recordings collection presents a vibrant mix of traditional and popular music recorded at a broad range of locations and events in Ghana during the 1970s by ethnomusicologist James Koetting. Students and researchers can hear online the complete archive of Koetting's field tapes — 142 audio reel tapes — of musical performances from arts festivals, traditional ceremonies and events, stage concerts, church services, and less formal gatherings and sessions throughout Ghana.

Maqam World is a non-commercial, educational web site dedicated to helping musicians understand the maqam or modal system used in classical Arabic music. Maqam World attempts to simplify the subject for the Arabic music beginner, while trying hard to remain correct and not exclude any essential information. As this is a very rich subject, this web site is a work in progress which relies on the contribution of musicians and the feedback of its reader community.

There are many different definitions of the Sephardi people. This site focuses on the music of the Jews descended from those exiled from the Iberian Peninsula. The recordings researched here arise from the music of the Jews who spread from Spain and Portugal principally into the former Ottoman lands, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria – which became home to the Eastern Mediterranean tradition and to Morocco – where the Western Mediterranean tradition arose.

The world's premier music publication, Billboard has served the entertainment business since 1894. Beginning as a weekly for the billposting and advertising business, Billboard and its popular music charts have evolved into the primary source of information on trends and innovation in music, serving music fans, artists, top executives, tour promoters, publishers, radio programmers, lawyers, retailers, digital entrepreneurs and many others.

Pollstar is the only trade publication covering the worldwide concert industry. We have been supplying in-depth information to every professional concert promoter, booking agent, artist manager, facility executive and every other entity involved in the live entertainment business for 30 years. We produce a weekly print magazine for professionals and publish that information daily to the web via our paid subscription site at PollstarPro.com. Our free Pollstar.com website is for live music fans and contains the same high quality information that industry professionals use daily to route their tours.