Overview
This page briefly highlights composers and musicians who live with a mental or physical disabilities.
Approaches to Searching
To locate books about a specific person or topic, use the Subject Search in the OPAL Library Catalog. Each book has been tagged with specific subject headings that describe its content.
Subject headings for groups of people not associated with a nationality are relatively new, and practices are still being worked out. Some headings that have been applied to disability studies, though, include:
- Artists with mental disabilities
- Musicians with disabilities
- Composers with disabilities
General Resources
- Music Online: Garland Encyclopedia of World MusicA comprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples.
- Oxford Music OnlineAlthough OMO (incorporating the Grove Dictionary of Music) initially focused almost exclusively on Western art music, its focus expanded in more recent editions, and it now provides valuable content across a range of cultures.
- Bloomsbury Popular MusicFeatures a substantial encyclopedia of popular music, the 33 1/3 book series dedicated to coverage of rock and pop albums, and scholarly books.
- Music Online: Classical Music ReferenceSearch the full-text of music reference titles including Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music.
- IPA SourceA service that provides translations and phonetic (IPA) transcriptions of thousands of songs and arias.
- Institute for Composer DiversityThe ICD maintains databases of diverse composers and their works. You can search by composer identity, instrument, ensemble, and musical grade level.
Library Collections
Books
Rethinking Difference in Music Scholarship by Call Number: E-bookISBN: 9781107026674Publication Date: 2015-01-08
Inclusive Arts Practice and Research by Call Number: E-bookISBN: 9781317555339Publication Date: 2015-05-22
Music, Disability, and Society by Call Number: E-bookISBN: 9781439900277Publication Date: 2010-12-17
Disability Studies Resources
There are many online resources devoted to diversity in music. Here are just a few essential ones.
- RAMPDRAMPD promotes disabled artists and amplifies Disability culture in the music industry. You can search for artists and members of RAMPD and view their profile which provides a bio and some musical examples. They also provide updates and articles on disability studies.
- Coalition for Disabled MusiciansCoalition for Disabled Musicians offer lists of adaptive gear for musicians. They also share a list of musicians involved with the coalition and provide sound samples from their recordings.
- Stop Being a Fatphobe: Bringing a Larger Conversation to Critical Information Literacy from OberlinA brief look at fatphobia in music. There is a bias assessment available as well as a bibliography for further reading. Additionally, the give suggestions to some musicians with diverse body types.
- Disability Arts InternationalDisability Arts International is a newsletter about disability studies and the arts. It has a searchable list of artists as well as different resources and a discover page organized by new stories and by country. While the page does not focus on musical artists, there are still several sources and articles about music.
- Drake MusicDrake music shares resources for musicians including adaptive gear and music tech. They also share news about disability studies in music technology. Their DM Collective project promotes and shares different artists music and provides bios and music samples of members.
- Disability Awareness ResourcesSongtrust’s Disability Awareness Resources page provides articles and organizations that promote disability studies and access to music.
- SMT Accessibility and Disability Interest GroupSociety for Music Theory’s interest group on Accessibility and Disability. They provide their bylaws and meeting minutes as well as a bibliography of published works organized into different disabilities. The Musical Representations of Disability is a spreadsheet listing representation of characters in music literature and comment on poor representation of these character’s disability.
- SEM Disability and Deaf Studies Special Interest GroupSociety for Ethnomusicology provides a bibliography of published books and journals about disability and deaf studies. They share musical artists/works organized by genre and provide some links to the composer’s website.
- Public Health DatabasesConsult public health databases through Ritter Library.
- Psychology DatabasesConsult psychology databases through Ritter Library
