Library & Learning Commons: Music: Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Encyclopedias and dictionaries provide general information about a subject that can get you started with your research. Encyclopedia articles, like those in Oxford Music Online, often include bibliographies that can point you toward useful resources. In addition to the online encyclopedias and dictionaries listed below, you can browse the REF ML100-109 section of the fourth-floor stacks for many more that we have in print!

Encyclopedias

CREDO Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides searchable full text articles from over 800 reference works on a broad range of subjects, including music.
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music This link opens in a new window
More than 9,000 pages of material, combined with entries by more than 700 expert contributors from all over the world.
Music Online: African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of Black American musical expression.
Music Online: Classical Music Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Includes Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music, and many more reference works.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Searchable full text articles from The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music.

Dictionaries

The music-specific resources listed below are all included in Credo Reference.

The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music

This guide brings together all the pertinent biographical information about composers, performers, music theorists, and instrument makers from the days of praise chants to the bop and pop of today.

The Harvard Dictionary of Music

Includes entries on all the styles and forms in Western music; comprehensive articles on the music of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Near East; descriptions of instruments enriched by historical background; and articles that reflect today's beat, including popular music, jazz, and rock.

The New Penguin Dictionary of Music

Contains biographies of thousands of composers from Albinoni to Zappa, with in-depth treatment of major figures, coverage of individual works, including plot summaries of operas and ballets, articles on the history of music and instruments, entries on musical forms, from medieval plainchant to contemporary minimalism, and clear definitions of technical terms and jargon.

Musical Terms, Symbols and Theory: An Illustrated Dictionary

Fully cross referenced, this dictionary is an authoritative source for researchers, musicologists, professional musicians, teachers and students of music, and educated members of the public.