Last revised: August 2009
Finding Sound Recordings (CDs, LPs, audio cassettes, and online sound files) in the UM Libraries
Scope: Sound Recordings are in many collections within the Libraries. This guide focuses primarily on locating music recordings within the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. Recordings can be tricky to find; please contact librarian Steve Henry (shenry@umd.edu or 301.405.9256) for more information.
Table of Contents
UM Libraries Catalog
Use the Catalog, the advanced search and limit
Catalogued PAL recordings are in two locations: Paged Collections and IPAM. Both collections are accessed from the Circulation Desk. Most paged collections
recordings may be checked out for one week (reserves, rock & roll and boxed sets do not circulate). IPAM recordings must be used in the library
and are only available 9-5, Monday - Friday. Examples of call numbers:
Author (Composer) and Title Search
These types of searches are fairly straightforward. Use the dropdown menu (search for words in..) to choose an author or title search. Enter the composer's name (e.g. Beethoven; Beatles) or title of work (e.g. Magic Flute; "you never give me your money"), (quotes used for a phrase).
Genre (concertos, sonatas, quartets...) Search
When searching for types of compositions, use the plural form as a subject search. Concertos, sonatas, quartets, operas...
Looking for Haydn's trumpet concertos
Subject (folk music, electronic music, sounds, songs...) Search
To locate recordings in a particular genre of music use keyword/s or subject headings. To locate sound effects, use sounds as a subject.
Sample subject headings:
|
dance music dance music cuba masses, unaccompanied songs, chinese folk music china sounds wedding music |
music spain music spain 500-1400 marimba music electronic music computer music christmas music jewish chants |
Online audio
Audio Databases
- African American Song contains jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives. Includes 16,000 tracks of historical recordings from Document Records (recordings from the first half of the 20th century).
- Classical Music Library is a large multi-label database of Classical music recordings with a focus on content that meets the needs of educators and students. Audio tracks are supplemented by reference materials and backed by tools allowing users to create their own Playlists or to click on Themed Playlists that group tracks in various ways: e.g., by music textbook, composer, performer, style period, genre. Provides in-depth coverage of classical music from the Middle Ages to the present. Approximately 20,000 licensed recordings are included along with thousands of biographies.
- Contemporary World Music is an online listening database featuring popular genres of world music, including worldbeat, Bollywood, reggae and more. This database complements Smithsonian Global Sound, which focuses more on traditional genres. Many excellent world music record labels, such as Lyrichord, Topic, and Budamusique, are represented.
- DRAM: Database of Recorded American Music is a scholarly resource of recordings by American composers and performers. It provides CD quality audio, complete and original liner notes, and essays from New World Records, Composers Recordings, Inc. (CRI), Albany, innova, Cedille, XI, Pogus, Deep Listening, and Mutable Music labels. As of May 2007 DRAM offers access to 1,500 CDs (9,800 compositions).
- Naxos Music Library offers 140,000 tracks for online listening (as of May 2007), including Naxos classical, jazz, world-music and historical releases, and Marco Polo and Da Capo catalogues. Naxos Historical, Nostalgia, and Jazz Legends recordings are not available in the United States because of the uncertain legal situation regarding pre-1972 sound recordings.
- Smithsonian Global Sound includes published recordings of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and archival audio collections of Folkways Records, and of Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk Musical Magazine, Monitor, Paredon and other labels. Also included are field recordings collected on the South Asian subcontinent made available from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies. Music recorded around the African continent in the mid-20th century by Dr. Hugh Tracey for the International Library of African Music is here, as are nature sounds, spoken stories, and memoirs. Album cover art and liner notes have been scanned into the database.
Audio on UM Web Pages
- Historic Pianists from the collections of IPAM
[http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAMpianofiles.html] - Soundbites from the Library of American Broadcasting [http://www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/AUDIO/soundbites.html]
- Index to guitar transcriptions and performances by the late UM Music Librarian Yale Fineman in DRUM. [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/YALE/yale.html#index]
Locating Discographies
Discographies are subject-specific lists containing various amounts of information about sound recordings. They can be in book or journal article form, a concise list at the end of a book or article on a given subject, or on the Web.To locate discographies via the Catalog, conduct a word search on the topic and add the word discography or for a more relevant search use the advanced search and discography as a subject word and add other keyword/s (ex. popular music, women musicians, composer/performer name...)
Articles published in periodicals may be or contain discographies; to find them, use the word 'discography' or 'discographies' as one search term in periodical indexes online.
Sample terms: Music Index online give these terms to use: DISCOGRAPHIES. See also PERFORMER CREDITS; PHONOGRAPH RECORDS - Catalogs; RECORDINGS; RECORDINGS -Lists; as subheading under particular individuals and various types of musicians, e.g. JAZZ MUSICIANS - Discographies.
Notable discographies:
Bogdanov, Vladimir, ed. All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music San Francisco: Backbeat Books/All Media Guide, 2001
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML156.9.A38 2001
A large annotated discography of current and past releases. Covers 'Western' pop music better than other genres, but it can be useful for researching popular music worldwide (Latin America, Africa, etc.) See also the All Music Guide to classical music, jazz, blues, electronica, rock, soul, hip-hop, and country music. Allmusic.com is the online version.Cook, Richard, and Brian Morton. Penguin Guide to Jazz recordings. 8th edition. London: Penguin Books; New York: Penguin Putnam, 2006.
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML156.4.J3C67 2006Green, Jeff. The Green Book of Songs by Subject: The Thematic Guide to Popular Music. 5th edition. Nashville, TN: Professional Desk Reference, c2002
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML156.4.P6G73 2002
Lists song title, album, performer, and record label.McGovern, Adam, ed. MusicHound World: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink, 2000
LOCATION: PA LIB REF and STACKS
CALL NUMBER: ML156.4.W63M87 2000
An annotated discography of 'world' music. Includes background information on the performers and their music and a performer / country index (p. 993-99).Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. Rev. and expanded 8th ed. New York: Billboard Books, 2004
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML156.4.P6W44 2004
"Complete chart information about the most popular songs and artists in the US, 1955-2003"
Music Chronologies
If you want to locate music from a particular era, consult a music chronology (timeline). Use the catalog and the subject word/s: music chronology. Some of these resources can help you find music by geographical area as well. After you have located the name of a composer, performer or work, search for recordings in the UM catalog. Some chronology titles:
All About Jazz: History of Jazz Timeline
[http://www.allaboutjazz.com/timeline.htm] Includes discographical information.Classical Composers Archive
[http://voyager.physics.unlv.edu/webpages2/picgalr2.html]
Provides birth and death dates for thousands of composers organized by name, date, national origin, and timeline.Hall, John C. A Chronicle of American Music, 1700-1995. New York: Schirmer Books, c1996.
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML200.H15 1996_______. Chronology of Western Classical Music, 1751-2000. New York: Routledge, 2002
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML161.H35 2002
Provides an array of information, including works composed in a particular year.Mattfeld, Julius. Variety music cavalcade, 1620-1969 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971
LOCATION: PA LIB REF
CALL NUMBER: ML128.v7m4 1971
A chronology of vocal and instrumental music popular in the United States.Additional recordings in UM Libraries collections:
International Piano Archives at Maryland [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAM/]
In addition to cataloged IPAM recordings, there are many uncataloged piano recordings arranged by label number; contact IPAM with questions.Library of American Broadcasting [http://www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/]
Oral histories, interviews, speeches, programming, commercials, news and other special events; thousands of recordings in a variety of formats, from early radio transcription discs to CDs of award winning radio commercials. Nothing circulates; fees for copy orders apply. Search LAB collections- National Public Broadcasting Archives [http://www.lib.umd.edu/NPBA/]
Brings together the archival record of the major entities of non-commercial broadcasting in the United States. Nothing circulates; fees for copy orders apply. Nonprint Media Services [http://www.lib.umd.edu/NPRINT/nprint.html]
Audio recordings, (including sound effects - search the catalog using the advanced search; sounds as a subject; limit format to sound recordings(all); limit location to Nonprint Media Services (all). Collection also includes videocassettes, videodiscs, DVDs, films.Special Collections in Performing Arts [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/]
Many uncataloged, but inventoried, band and clarinet recordings; Ask the SCPA Curator.
