Research Guides: Music: Sophomore Assessment

Resources

The following online resources will give you entries that can provide information about your composer, time period, style of music, and other essential pieces of information. They are a great place to start. Most entries link citations at the bottom which can help you continue your research.

Oxford Music Online (formerly Grove Music Online) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to Grove Music Online, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music.
Gale Reference eBooks This link opens in a new window
Provides a database of encyclopedias and reference sources for research. Coverage include the Arts, Business, Education, the Environment, History, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Religion, Science and Social Science. 2000 – present.
African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides access to publications on blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression from a variety of sources.
Classical Music Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Provides reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music, in a unified online database.

Encyclopedia of Popular Music
This encyclopedia's 30,000 entries cover all genres and periods of popular music from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music.

Use these resources to find streaming audio/video recordings of the piece(s) you are studying. The recordings are usually of pretty good quality. Many recordings that come from albums include liner notes.

Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Naxos Music Library [NML] is the world's largest online classical music library. As of March 31, 2020, it offers streaming access to more than 150,000 albums with more than 2,300,000 tracks. On average, 500 new albums are added to the library every month. 10 users
Classical Music Library* This link opens in a new window
Provides sound tracks of well over 1.2 million recordings of classical music.. Features the world's greatest performers from over 32 major and independent classical labels, including EMI and Hyperion. (Part of Music Online)
Smithsonian Global Sound* This link opens in a new window
A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions, Smithsonian Global Sound provides access to over 35,000 individual tracks of music, spoken word, and natural and human-made sounds. (Part of Music Online)

IMSLP
Free, public domain scores and parts

Music Index This link opens in a new window
Covers all areas of classical and popular music (international focus). Provides indexing and abstracts for over 660 journals. Articles date from 1964-present.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
Provides citations and abstracts to music articles (international focus) from 1969-present, with records in over 200 languages. Indexes more than 2,000 music journals and about 11,000 journals from other disciplines.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides access to content across all disciplines. Search or browse books, journals, images, and primary sources.

Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text articles from the Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1905-1975), Chicago Tribune (1858-1993), Los Angeles Times (1881-1993), New York Times (1851-2013), Philadelphia Inquirer (1860-2001), Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1786-2003), San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922), Wall Street Journal (1889-Current), Washington Post (1877-2000), The Guardian (1821-2003), and The Observer (1791-2003).
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Features full-text images of over 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, including titles from all 50 states.
Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains searchable newspaper pages, dating as far back as the 1600s. Use the archive to view, save and print newspapers from around the world. Includes the Gettysburg Times (1909 to 2 months ago).

Citations

Due to the nature of this presentation, you will probably want to cite your sources in Chicago style. However, other citation forms may be appropriate. Speak to your private instructor if you have questions about this.

Presenting Skills

PowerPoint tips:

Only write using bullet points or short, key bits of information. Do not include long paragraphs or sentences.
Include photographs, quotes, scans of your score, etc. to make your presentation interesting and visually appealing
Use presentation notes! This can be on note cards, a typed outline, or making use of presenter view. Do not read directly off of the PowerPoint.
Cite your sources! Just as you would in a formal paper, you must cite your sources. This is best done at the bottom of each slide that needs one or in a bibliography at the end
Put the year of the piece on the title slide. This helps your audience to orient themselves to the time period in which it was composed from the moment you start.

Presenting Skills:

Make eye contact (fake it by looking at foreheads or just over the shoulders of the panelists)
Speak loud enough and clearly
Gesture appropriately
Take pauses/breaths (write them in and rehearse them if you have to!)
Don't be afraid to play/sing what you are referencing. If you are talking about a specific theme or motif, consider playing it on your instrument to contextualize it.
Practice, practice, practice!

Citing your sources is just as important in a presentation as in a formal research paper. There are several ways you can do this.

Create a bibliography slide at the end of your powerpoint.

You can order your bibliography slide by number (References slide below) and then reference the numbers in your slide (Beethoven slide below)

Create a hand-out of your bibliography. Order the bibliography by number as on the references slide above, then reference those numbers in your slide (Beethoven slide above)

Use footnote style citations at the bottom of your slides.

View this video to learn how to cite images in your presentation!