The Stanford Libraries continue to expand and enhance their collection of online music databases.
Contemporary World Music
Contemporary World Music has been added to the Music Library's suite of streamed audio databases provided by Alexander Street Press. Created as a complementary database to Smithsonian Global Sound, it provides both contemporary and traditional world music recordings from labels around the world. Its primary focus, however, is contemporary genres such as Afro Pop, and World Beat. The database includes over 1,600 albums, with over 22,000 tracks. The Browse feature provides a good introduction to its contents. You can browse by Places, Names [of performers], Ensembles, Cultural Groups, Instruments, Albums, and Genres. The genres are expanded by sub-genres, which provide a detailed and rich means of finding music in the database. For instance the genre of Dance is broken down into over 70 dance types. Try it out and listen to Sophie Tucker sing My Yiddishe Momme alongside Agua Loca's Vámanos, Maname Diname by Cheb i Sabbah, and Zao performing Apartheid.
African American Music
African American Music has merged with American Song. If you have been a user of the African American Music, you'll find all your playlists, course folders, and login information from African American Music in American Song. You can restrict your searches in American Song specifically to African American music by either selecting the genre "African American Music," or from the top toolbar, clicking either Browse Albums or Browse All Recordings. Both search screens have a box labeled "show African American recordings only." You'll see the box on the upper right hand corner of either search screen.
Searching Our Alexander Street Press Databases
The music databases from Alexander Street Press can be searched individually or comprehensively. Music Online, makes it possible to do one search across most of the databases we subscribe to: American Song, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, Dance in Video, and Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. A search for "spirituals" for example, will yield articles in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music as well as nearly 300 recordings. Smithsonian Global Sound is expected to be included in this cross-search platform in fall 2009.
Oxford Music Online Addition
Our subscription to Oxford Music Online now includes Encyclopedia of Popular Music, the online version of Colin Larkin's critically acclaimed 10-volume set. Covering popular music of all genres and periods from 1900 to the present including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music, the Encyclopedia also offers thousands of additional entries covering popular music genres, trends, styles, record labels, venues, and music festivals. Key dates, biographies, and further reading are provided for artists covered, along with complete discographies and a 5-star album rating system. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music is entirely cross-searchable with Grove Music Online through the Oxford Music Online gateway.
More Information
Visit these streaming music resources via the links in this article, or by searching the collection titles in the Stanford Libraries' Databases page. See also Sheet Music Database: Stanford Access in this issue.
