Overview
Black music encompasses an incredibly rich universe of sound in genres ranging from folk to Western classical to jazz, rock, and hip-hop. This page provides some resources and approaches to exploring that universe. These are just starting places for you to begin to access the wealth of media and writings about Black music.
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 Black music, though, include:
- African American musicians
- African Americans -- Music -- History and criticism
- Africans -- Music -- History and criticism.
- Blacks -- Music -- History and criticism
- Music -- Africa -- History and criticism
- Music and race -- United States – History
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
Black Lives Matter & Music by Call Number: ML3556 .B57 2018ISBN: 9780253038418Publication Date: 2018-08-10
Ethnomusicologizing by Call Number: ML3479 .B366 2015ISBN: 9781442229716Publication Date: 2015-08-13
The Power of Black Music by Call Number: ML3556 .F65 1995ISBN: 0195082354Publication Date: 1995-07-27
Collection
A New Anthology of Art Songs by African American Composers by Call Number: M1619 .N48 2004ISBN: 0809325233Publication Date: 2004-04-26
Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora by Call Number: M21 .P53 2008 v.1ISBN: 9780193868229Publication Date: 2008- Black Women Composers: A Century of Piano Music (1893-1990) / Amanda Aldridge [and others] byCall Number: M21 .B55 1992Publication Date: 1992
- Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers byCall Number: M1619.P318 APublication Date: 1977
Black Music Resources
There are many online resources devoted to diversity in music. Here are just a few essential ones.
- Music Online: African American Music ReferenceAfrican American Music Reference will contain 50,000 pages of text and 17,000 pages of liner notes that offers the first comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
- African American Art Song AllianceProviding information about African American contributors to art song, whether composers, performers, or scholars.
- African Diaspora Music ProjectDesigned to make concert music by Black composers more accessible. Includes biographies of composers and listings for over 2000 works, primarily vocal.
- AfriClassical.comListings of Black classical composers and performers, and some information on Black classical history.
- Black Music History LibraryA substantial bibliography of published resources on Black music, arranged into categories.
- Black and Brown Composers in Baroque Latin AmericaComposers are organized by country. There are brief bibliographic information as well as links and resource recommendations in citation style.
- Music by Black ComposersRepertoire lists for several instrumentations in addition to several other sources like directories for both living and historic composers, discographies, podcasts, music theory sources, and more.
- Spirituals DatabaseContextual historical information as well as the ability to search or browse their database. There are curated playlists and recommended recordings. They also provide poetry, art, and album covers.
- Brown University's African American Sheet MusicAfrican American sheet music collection from Brown University that has been digitized. Provides historical background of the collection and highlights of the collection. Searchable and browsable.
- Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture- Music searchDirect link to search results from the Smithsonian’s NMAAHC music collection. Browse photographs and historical documents, including sheet music, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
- Allegro JournalAllegro is a journal published by Local 802 FM who are Associated Musicians of Greater New York. The goal of the journal is to “create pathways into the field for musicians of color.” Journal articles are free and can be accessed through the site.
