Introduction
This page includes resources for finding articles about indigenous music. We've included some search tips in the box below as well as a list of suggested article databases to guide your search. 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.
Finding Articles in Databases
Choosing Search Terms
Just like with finding books, it's always a good idea to brainstorm similar words that might also be used to represent your topic before you start searching. Below are some tips for getting started with keywords:
- American Indian, Amerindian, Native American, First Nations, First Peoples, or Indigenous
- Specific tribe/nation (e.g. Cherokee)
- Combining a tribe/nation with a topic (e.g. Shoshone music)
Once you find a relevant article, always look at the subjects or topics listed in the description to find related materials and help you brainstorm keywords.
Choosing a Database
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.
Databases are listed below and grouped by discipline. If you'd like to search across several databases at once, look for an option to Choose Databases by the search bar. Here you can select additional databases to search at the same time.
Suggested Databases
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowAnthropology Plus provides worldwide indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies. Coverage is from the late 19th century to the present.
- ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials This link opens in a new windowThe ATLA Religion Database is a comprehensive database designed to support religious and theological scholarship. Though coverage is from 1949 to the present, not all publications began in 1949.
- Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new windowContains citations to articles in more than 400 scholarly journals published in Latin America or treating Latin American and U.S. Hispanic topics.
- eHRAF (Human Relations Area Files) World CulturesA specially organized collection of thousands of full-text sources on almost 400 cultures worldwide. HRAF can be useful for anyone looking for background information or specific data on a particular ethnic group, culture, or country, as well as for those investigating subjects like architecture, kinship, political structure, or settlement patterns on a comparative cross-cultural basis.
- 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. - 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.
- Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowA database with full-text and abstracts of articles on music. Includes indexing for music articles and obituaries from the New York Times and The Washington Post. Covers nearly all aspects of music, including scholarly studies and popular trends. Coverage: 1874 - present.
- Music Index This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: Music Index in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). Contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for every aspect of the classical and popular world of music including musicological and organological topics, as well as book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries from more than 850 music periodicals from over 40 countries.
- 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.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Included are journals, magazines, and newspapers from ethnic and minority presses. The current collection, Ethnic NewsWatch™, covers 1990-present, and the historical collection, Ethnic NewsWatch: A History™, spans 1959-1989. Ethnicities include: African American/Caribbean/African; Arab/Middle Eastern; Asian/Pacific Islander; European/Eastern European; Hispanic; Jewish; Native People. - Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: Alternative Press Index Archive in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). The Alternative Press Index is a subject index to over 300 alternative, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines. The Index is international and interdisciplinary, spanning the social sciences and humanities, with its central focus on the practice and theory of socialism, national liberation, labor, indigenous peoples, gays/lesbians, feminism, ecology, democracy, and anarchism.