Welcome to the Africana Music Research Guide
This guide is designed to kickstart student research in Africana Music by highlighting key resources, databases, and strategies in the discipline. This first page is dedicated to broader Africana Music databases and sources, and the other pages are organized by topics within Africana Music.
Key Music Resources
The following are some best bets for starting music research. For a full list of databases at Oberlin, check out our Databases A-Z.
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Grove Music Online This link opens in a new windowOnline music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.
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Music Index Online This link opens in a new windowMusic Index Online covers topics concerned with every aspect of the classical and popular world of music. Dates of coverage: 1979-present.
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Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new windowStreaming audio, liner notes, and biographical information on composers and performers.
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RILM Full Text This link opens in a new windowComprehensive music bibliography providing international coverage of music literature. Dates of coverage: 1775 to the present.
Africana Databases that Contain Music Information
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African American Periodicals (1825-1995) This link opens in a new windowMore than 170 periodicals by and about African Americans, published in 26 states. Includes academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, bulletins, annual reports and more.
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African Journals Online This link opens in a new windowUse African Journals OnLine (AJOL) to find articles written by scholars on the continent of Africa. Although there are not many articles on the art of Africa it is still an important place to check.
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Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Covers the Black experience from ancient Africa to the modern day from perspectives in history, literature, political science, sociology, philosophy, music, visual arts, and religion. Includes index to Black Literature (1827-1940), Black Studies Periodical Database, and the full text backfile (1910-2010) of the influential black newspaper The Chicago Defender.
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Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowAfrican American and African history and culture including biographies, topical entries, primary source documents with commentary, images, maps, charts, tables, and more.
Encyclopedias, Bibliographies, and Research Guides for Africana Music
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Black Music and Musicians in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music and the New Harvard Dictionary of Music
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Call Number: Con Ref ML128.B45 D443 1989ISBN: 0929911008Publication Date: 1989-01-01 -
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
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Call Number: Con Ref ML100 .G16 1997 v.1-10ISBN: 0824060350Publication Date: 1997Explores key themes in African music that have emerged in recent years-a subject usually neglected in country-by-country coverage. Emphasizes the contexts of musical performance-unlike studies that offer static interpretations isolated from other performing traditions. It presents the fresh insights and analyses of musicologists and anthropologists of diverse national origins-African, Asian, European, and American.
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Black Composers in LC Music Division Collections
This guide introduces performers, conductors, and researchers to resources from the Music Division of the Library Congress to help them discover concert music by Black composers. -
Black Music History Library
A collection of books, articles, documentaries, series, podcasts and more about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day. -
Exploring the Aesthetics of African-American Classical Music: An Annotated Bibliography by Chris Jenkins (PDF)
This annotated bibliography addresses the history and aesthetics of “classical” music compositions by African-American composers . -
Music by Black Composers: An Introductory Resource,
This repertoire guide was created by studio faculty chairs and other leaders in the Music Division at Juilliard. This well-researched list of Black composers' works seeks to create a more representative classical music world.
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An Annotated Catalog of Composers of African Ancestry
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Call Number: Con Ref ML128.B45 C3 1986ISBN: 0533066131Publication Date: 1986-03-01 -
Bibliography of Black Music by
Call Number: Con Ref ML128.B45D44 v.1-4ISBN: 0313213402Publication Date: 1981-04-30 -
Black Concert and Recital Music: A Provisional Repertoire List
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Call Number: Con Ref ML128.N4D4Publication Date: 1975
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Blacks in Classical Music
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Call Number: Con Ref ML128.B45 G7 1988ISBN: 0313260567Publication Date: 1988-06-20This comprehensive guide is the first to cover the full range of black activity in classical music, with more than 4,000 references to over 300 performers and ensembles. Compiler John Gray has organized a wealth of resources spanning from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, and ranging geographically from Europe and Africa to the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Containing sections on composers, conductors, individual instrumentalists, symphony orchestras, opera singers and companies, the work builds on earlier research in this long-neglected subject, and brings the black musical legacy to new levels of prominence and accessibility.
Subject headings are labels used by librarians to consistently index or organize their collections. Here are some possible subject headings to search for Africana music resources on Search.Libraries.