Introduction
This page includes resources for finding articles about American music. We've included some suggested article databases below as well as recommendations of specific publications to check out in the next box. For more information about searching for and accessing scholarly articles through the Library, check our our guide linked below.
- Finding Journal Articles for Music ResearchThis guide is an introduction (or a refresher) to searching for, accessing, and evaluating articles for music research.
Suggested Databases
The best place to find scholarly articles is in one of the Library's databases. The University of Illinois subscribes to over a thousand different databases that can help you access the content you need. It can be overwhelming to know how to start searching, so we've pulled out a list of recommendations to get you started.
Music & Performing Arts Databases
- Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowThe database covers a comprehensive range of subject areas in both scholarly and popular music journals ranging from Ethnomusicology, Jazz Education Journal, and Musical Times, to Rolling Stone. Articles examine a wide spectrum of musical subjects, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition.
- Music Index This link opens in a new windowThe print version of The Music Index began in 1949. The online version of the Music Index covers the mid-1970s-present. The index boasts a broad range of subjects, including past and present personalities, the history of music, forms and types of music, musical instruments from the earliest times to modern electronic instruments, plus computer produced music.
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: RILM Abstracts of Music Literature in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is a comprehensive bibliography on writings about music featuring citations, abstracts and indexes. It covers nearly one and a half million publications from around the world on traditional music, popular music, jazz, classical music and related subjects. Coverage begins in the early 19th century and extends to the present.
Interdisciplinary Databases
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis. The University of Illinois has access to the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XV, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Business IV, Global Plants, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences Collection, Lives of Literature, Security Studies, Struggles for Freedom - South Africa, Sustainability, and World Heritage Sites - Africa. - Project Muse This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from more than 200 scholarly journals in history and the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences. Disciplines covered include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others. Currently contains several music journals, including Music and Letters.
Selected Journals
If you're just looking for a place to browse, check out the journals listed below. We've highlighted several publications that are particularly good for American music research.
Looking for a specific journal? Check the Library catalog or our Journal and Article Locator tool to see if we have it in print and/or online.
- The American Music Research Center JournalThe American Music Research Center Journal was published annually from 1991 through 2019 and included topics of general interest about American music, particularly in subject areas relevant to the AMRC Collections.
- Journal of the Society for American MusicThe Journal of the Society for American Music is an international, peer-reviewed journal dealing with all aspects of American music and music in the Americas. JSAM is dedicated to supporting scholarship that transcends disciplinary boundaries, cutting across historical musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, cultural theory, identity studies, and American studies.
- Black Music Research JournalThe Black Music Research Journal was a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Center for Black Music Research at the Columbia College Chicago. It covers the philosophy, aesthetics, history, and criticism of black music.
- Journal of American CultureMultidisciplinary in focus, The Journal of American Culture combines studies of American literature, history, and the arts, with studies of the popular, the taken-for-granted, and the ordinary pieces of American life, to produce analyses of American culture with a breadth and holism lacking in traditional American studies.