Guides: MUS 135/335 Pepperdine University Symphony (P. Tang): Home

Course Description

The symphony provides selected students the opportunity to perform works from the standard and twentieth-century orchestral repertoire. While solo appearances are made at concerts by faculty and professional artists, students who have demonstrated outstanding performance ability may also be invited to perform as soloists

Additional Resources

For listings of additional music resources, consult the Music Reserach Guide.

Listen to and Watch Music

Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Over 1.45 million tracks of music from the Naxos and other independent music labels; includes background information.
Classical Music Library This link opens in a new window
Streaming access to over classical music recordings. Includes the Music Library Association listing of essential sound recordings.

Medici.tv
Medici.tv is described as "the leading educational video resource in classical music, opera, and dance". The site broadcasts more than 100 live events each year, from venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Bolshoi Theater, Opéra national de Paris, NCPA, Glyndebourne Festival, Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival, Salzburg Festival, International Tchaikovsky Competition, International Chopin Piano Competition, Plácido Domingo's Operalia Competition, and more.
Academic Video Online
Academic Video Online is the most comprehensive video subscription available, delivering almost 70,000 titles spanning subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. More than 14,000 titles are exclusive to Alexander Street.
Digital Theatre Plus
Digital Theatre Plus brings live performance into the classroom, accompanied by a range of educational resources for illustration, explanation, and critical reflection. Includes several theatre resources, including over 200 productions, 18 master classes, 27 documentaries, 260 interviews and 62 practical guides.

Getting Started

Encyclopedias and dictionaries are a great place to start when wanting to learn more about a subject. These two resources below will be beneficial to you for this course.

Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window
Access to articles and biographies from field of music, includes The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.
Oxford History of Western Music Online This link opens in a new window
Reference work on evolution of Western classical music by Richard Taruskin.

Below are more general encyclopedic sources.

Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
Biographical information on more than 528,000 people throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.
Some 50,000 new and/or updated biographies are added each year, as well as daily status updates of existing subjects
Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Access to encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
Authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium: the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over more than 600,000 words.
Every three months updates revise existing entries and add new words

Merriam-Webster
Another great dictionary resource, freely available.

Other resources

Bach Cantatas Website
The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) is a comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works and many of his instrumental works.
Performing Arts Databases (Library of Congress)
Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589–1839
Musipedia: Musipedia Melody Search Engine
A searchable, editable, and expandable collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes.

Music Scores Online

IMSLP: International Music Score Library Project This link opens in a new window
Contains all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music without charge.
Digital Mozart Edition This link opens in a new window
Musical text and the critical commentary of the entire Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.

UCLA Music Library
The Contemporary Music Score Collection is published by the UCLA Music Library. The collection includes the digital, open access scores from the Contemporary Score Edition series, the first open access edition of new music published by a library, and scores from the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library. The Contemporary Score Edition is made possible because of the Hugo Davise Fund for Contemporary Music.
Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL)
The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), is an Internet-based free sheet music website which specializes in choral music.
Boosey & Hawkes Online Scores
Boosey & Hawkes Online Scores allows you to view selected works from the B&H catalogue in an online display. The service requires free registration.

Locate Journal Articles in Online Databases

Music Index This link opens in a new window
Music periodicals and literature featuring digitized content from 1970 to present.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides full text coverage to peer-reviewed titles in the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education and more.
International Index to Music Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Articles on all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms, and composition.
IIMP covers a comprehensive range of subject areas in both scholarly and popular music journals ranging from International Journal of Music Education, Ethnomusicology, Jazz Education Journal and Musical Times to Rock and Rap Confidential, and Rolling Stone. The database currently includes over 770,000 records, the majority of which index the most recent years of publication. More than 200,000 records in IIMP are from the backfile (up to 1995) and much of this coverage commences at the first issue of the journal run, some starting as early as 1874. Over 30 titles are indexed from first issue to last. IIMP is a dynamic database, with records added on a monthly basis.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Archive of interdisciplinary journals and books, covering the Arts, Business & Economics, History, Humanities, Law, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Religion.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Full-text current and archival articles from scholarly journals covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed scientific journals, books and conference proceedings covering fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Sage Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Access to the full text journals in Business, Communication, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search for papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

Open Access Music Journals
A one stop shop for users to open access journals about music, providing links to full-text sites.
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A one stop shop for users to open access journals about music. An "open access journal" does not charge readers or their institutions for access, giving users full rights to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the journal's articles.

Dissertations

Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Doctoral dissertations and master's theses, from 1743 to the present. Full text for most dissertations since 1997.

Text and Diction Guide

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) Source This link opens in a new window
Library of IPA transcriptions and literal translations of opera arias and art song texts.

LiederNet Archive
The LiederNet Archive is the world’s largest reference archive of texts and translations of art songs and choral works.

Citation Help

Chicago Manual of Style Online This link opens in a new window
Provides recommendations on editorial style and publishing practices for the digital age. CMOS includes the full contents of the 17th edition.