LibGuides: Music Research Guide: Music History &amp; Ethnomusicology

Books on Music History

The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin; Christopher H. Gibbs
Call Number: ML160 .T182 2013
Publication Date: 2012-01-25
Richard Taruskin and Christopher Gibbs have taken the best-selling six-volume Oxford History of Western Music and created a one-volume edition suitable for the undergraduate music history sequence. This compelling narrative introduces students to the broad sweep of music history by makingconnections between music and the larger human, social, and political context in which pieces were created and heard. Abundant features such as timelines, chapter summaries, key terms, study questions, and a glossary, ensure the volume will be accessible to students of varying levels.
The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin
Call Number: ML160.T18 O92 2009 [Drinko Reference]
Publication Date: 2009-07-27
The Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time. This text illuminates, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape anddirection to each musical age. Taking a critical perspective, this text sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. Written by an authoritative, opinionated, and controversial figure inmusicology, The Oxford History of Western Music provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works, a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in eachage, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the context of each stylistic period-key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientific events-influenced and directed compositional choices.
Norton Anthology of Western Music [vols. 1-3] by J. Peter Burkholder; Claude V. Palisca; C. Palisca; J. P. Burkholder
Call Number: MT6.5 .N67 2010
Publication Date: 2009-02-02
Highlights of the repertoire include new works from all periods: more contrasting virelais, ballades, and other chansons from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries; large-scale choral works, including Gabrieli's In ecclesiis, Lully's Te Deum, Haydn's Creation, and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky; more opera, including Norma, Les Huguenots, and Madama Butterfly; orchestral and chamber works by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorák, and Tchaikovsky; and new twentieth-century works by Satie, Bartók, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Varese, Hindemith, Cowell, Cage, Feldman, Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio, Reich, Adams, Ligeti, Schnittke, and Michael Daugherty.
New Oxford History of Music [Vol. 1-10] by Multiple Editors
Call Number: Ref. ML160 .N44
Publication Date: 1954
v. 1. Ancient and oriental music -- v. 2. Early medieval music up to 1300 -- v. 3. Ars Nova and the Renaissance, 1300-1540 -- v. 4. The Age of Humanism, 1540-1630 -- v. 5. Opera and church music, 1630-1750 -- v. 7. The Age of Enlightenment, 1745-1790 -- v. 8. The age of Beethoven, 1790-1830 -- v. 10. The modern age, 1890-1960.

Reference Books for History & Ethnomusicology

Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary by Richard Carlin
Call Number: Online Only
ISBN: 9781135361112
Publication Date: 2014-02-25
This illustrated A-Z guide covers more than 700 country music artists, groups, and bands. Articles also cover specific genres within country music as well as instruments used. Written in a lively, engaging style, the entries not only outline the careers of country music's greatest artists, they provide an understanding of the artist's importance or failings, and a feeling for his or her style. Select discographies are provided at the end of each entry, while a bibliography and indexes by instrument, musical style, genre, and song title round out the work. For a full list of entries, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary website.
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music by Ruth M. Stone (Editor)
Call Number: ML100 .G16 1998 (Vols. 1-10)
ISBN: 0824060350
Publication Date: 1997-08-01
Explores key themes in African music that have emerged in recent years-a subject usually neglected in country-by-country coverage emphasizes the contexts of musical performance-unlike studies that offer static interpretations isolated from other performing traditions presents the fresh insights and analyses of musicologists and anthropologists of diverse national origins-African, Asian, European, and American Charts the flow and influence of music. The Encyclopedia also charts the musical interchanges that followed the movement of people and ideas across the continent, including: cross-regional musical influences throughout Africa * Islam and its effect on African music * spread of guitar music * Kru mariners of Liberia * Latin American influences on African music * musical interchanges in local contexts * crossovers between popular and traditional practices. Audio CD included. Also includes nine maps and 96 music examples.
The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin
Call Number: ML102.P66 G84 1995 (Vol. 1-6)
ISBN: 0851126626
Publication Date: 1995
Historical Dictionary of Jazz by John S. Davis
Call Number: Online Only
ISBN: 0810878984
Publication Date: 2012-09-01
Jazz is a music formed from a combination of influences. In its infancy, jazz was a melting pot of military brass bands, work songs and field hollers of the United States slaves during the 19th century, European harmonies and forms, and the rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean. Later, the blues and the influence of Spanish and French Creoles with European classical training nudged jazz further along in its development. Jazz has always been a world-music in the sense that music from around the globe has been embraced and incorporated. The Historical Dictionary of Jazz covers the history of Jazz through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,500 cross-referenced entries on significant jazz performers, band leaders, bands, venues, record labels, recordings, and the different styles of jazz. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone seeking a broader understanding of the history of jazz and the connections within the genre.
The Norton-Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music by Stanley Sadie; Alison Latham (Editor)
Call Number: ML100 .N88 1988
ISBN: 0393026205
Publication Date: 1988-10-01
The entries cover all aspects of music, using material compiled by an international team of scholars. Among the features that make The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music indispensable for every home and desk are the authoritative biographies of composers and performers, concise explanations of terms, and title listings for hundreds of musical works.

Helpful Databases for Research

Call Numbers & Subject Headings

If you are looking for books on Music Ethnomusicology at any of our Marshall Libraries, here is a brief overview of the call number sections that may be helpful in your search. The Drinko, Morrow, and Charleston Library Stacks are organized through the Library of Congress cataloguing system which assigns Music subject books under the designation "M." For Music Ethnomusicology a good place to start is under the "ML" designation.

Areas to look for Research in Ethnomusicology:

ML3798: Ethnomusicology
ML3799: Ethnomusicology -- Addresses, essays, lectures, Ethnomusicology -- History; Ethnomusicology -- Fieldwork
ML3799.2: Applied Ethnomusicology

Areas to look for Folk, National, and Ethnic Music:

ML3544-3776: Folk, national, and ethnic music
- ML3550-ML3562: North America
  - ML3556: African American music
  - ML3557: Music of Indian nations and tribes
  - ML3563: Canadian music
  - ML3565: West Indes & Caribbean music
- ML3570-ML3572: Central America
- ML3575: South America
- ML3580-ML3730: Europe and Russia
- ML3740-ML3758: Asia & Middle East [Some examples]
  - ML3746: China
  - ML3748: India
  - ML3750: Japan
  - ML3752: South Korea
  - ML3754: Israel & Palestine
  - ML3757: Turkey
- ML3760: Africa
- ML3770: Australia
- ML3771: New Zealand
- ML3774-ML3775: Oceania
- ML3776: Jewish music

Subject Headings are great ways to search for a particular type of topic that you are looking for in your research. Subject Headings are standardized under the Library of Congress classification, so locating a particular subject heading can be searched in not only our Marshall Libraries but in libraries across the U.S. Use one of the following Subject Headings to help you narrow down your search.

Ethnomusicology
- Ethnomusicology -- [place]
  - ex. Ethnomusicology -- Mozambique
- Ethnomusicology -- Cross-cultural studies
- Ethnomusicology -- Fieldwork
- Ethnomusicology -- History
- Ethnomusicology -- Moral and Ethical Aspects
- Ethnomusicology -- Periodicals
- Ethnomusicology -- Study and teaching
Music and anthropology
World Music
- World Music -- Analysis, appreciation
- World Music -- History and criticism
- World Music -- Instruction and study
- World Music -- Social aspects
Cultural Industries
Ethnicity
Folk Music
- Folk music -- [place]
  - ex. Folk music -- Vietnam
Folk music groups
Globalization
Ethnicity in music
Music and race
Music and globalization
Music
- Music -- History and criticism
- Music -- Social Aspects
Musical Instruments
- Musical Instruments -- [place]
  - ex. Musical Instruments -- Australia
- Musical Instruments -- History
[Place or Culture] -- Music
- ex. Argentina -- Music