LibGuides: Brass Resource Guide: Guide Overview

Instrument Resource Guide Overview

Welcome to the Music & Performing Arts Library (MPAL) Brass Resource Guide!

While this guide is not a complete bibliography of materials related to the study and practice of brass instruments, it does contain a representative selection of the types of resources that will likely prove indispensable for performers, researchers, and educators alike. We hope it can serve as a valuable starting and/or reference point for your information seeking needs.

Use the tabs on the left to navigate between the pages of the guide. Each instrument page also contains several sub-pages which are listed when the cursor is held over the instrument's tab, as well as after you've navigated into the instrument's page.

Finding Materials

All items listed within this instrument guide are available through either the Music and Performing Arts Library or UIUC's Online Collection. Information on holdings and availability of specific items can be found using the library's online catalog. If you need assistance finding any materials or navigating the Library, don't hesitate to ask at the service desk.

For more tips and strategies to help you find scores and recordings as well as information about our streaming media resources, be sure to explore our Finding Music Materials guide (linked below). For additional resource and how-to guides, you can browse the full list of MPAL library guides.

Finding Music Materials
A guide to searching for and distinguishing between different musical formats using the library catalog.

General Brass Resources

The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments by Trevor Herbert (Editor); John Wallace (Editor)
Call Number: ML933 C25
This Companion covers many diverse aspects of brass instruments, providing an overview their history and technical and musical development along with an extensive glossary and bibliography.
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments by Herbert,Trevor, Arnold Myers, and John Wallace (editors)
Call Number: UIUC Online Resource
This encyclopedia focuses on the design, manufacture, performance, and history of brass instruments from antiquity to modern times. It includes over one hundred illustrations, and gives attention to every brass instrument which has been regularly used with information about the way they are played, the uses to which they have been put, and their importance in music.
Twentieth-Century Brass Soloists by Michael Meckna; Allen P. Britton (Foreword by)
Call Number: ML399M42 T8
This reference resource acts as a dictionary of famous soloists for brass instruments from the 20th century, with all of the entries arranged alphabetically and each entry including a biographical summary, selected discography, and selected bibliography for each performer.

Credits

This guide was authored by Ritse Adefolalu, MPAL Graduate Assistant, Fall 2016. Additional edits and content were added by Cory Davis, MPAL Graduate Assistant, Spring 2019. Updated in Spring 2022 by Margot Cuddihy.