MUSIC

The Coleman Library has a significant amount of materials in the area of music biography, including books, articles, and online resources. Below is a partial list of available resources. If you have any questions or cannot find information on your subject, ask a librarian at the Reference Desk or email us via Ask a Librarian on the library homepage (www.pvamu edu/library).

We also have many specialized books devoted to musicians within specific genres (e.g., gospel, jazz, rock), so it’s a good idea to look through the M (music) section in the reference shelves for more materials that aren’t on this list.

Use the online catalog (https://voyager-pv.tamu.edu/) to locate books in the library. You might want to start with general subject terms such as:

Arrangement (Music)
Chamber music
Composition (Music)
Instrumentation and orchestration

You can also look under various composers, such as:

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750.
Chopin, Freìdeìric, 1810-1849
Davis, Miles
Shakur, Tupac, 1971-

Or genres:

Gospel music
Gregorian chants History and criticism
Hip-hop

Contemporary Musicians
Ref ML 385 C615
Good source for living pop, rap, reggae, and other active singers and instrumentalists

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Ref ML 100 N48 2001
This 29 volume set primarily covers classical and jazz musicians; good source for dead classical composers

Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Ref ML102 P66 G84 1995
Excellent 8 volume source for obscure and/or forgotten popular performers and groups in the 20th Century

International Dictionary of Black Composers
Ref ML 390 I58 1999
Best source for biographical information on African American and other black composers

Current Biography
Ref CT 100 C8
Articles and photos on international celebrities active from 1945 to the present; good source for personal data (e.g., family, hobbies)

JStor - Short for “Journal Storage,” this database indexes many periodicals all the way back to their first issue. Contains such journals as Callaloo, Journal of Black Studies, African American Review and Transition

International Index to Black Periodicals – draws its content from 150+ international scholarly and popular periodicals in black studies; 40 core journals are full text

African American Biographical Database – photos and full text sketches of famous and obscure African Americans in all fields living from 1790-1950

Archives of African American Music and Culture http://www.indiana.edu/~aaamc/
The “links” page is a good starting point for all genres of music, from classical to hip-hop

Afrocentric Voices in “Classical” Music
http://www.africanvoices.com/
Website devoted to African American performers and composers and on the vocal music forms they influenced, especially opera, art songs, and concert-performance spirituals

African American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/rpbhtml/aasmhome.html
Part of the Library of Congress’ American Memory Project, this collection features 1305 reproductions of sheet music by African American composers of the period; the section of the development of the African American musical theatre is particularly interesting

Singingfish
http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp
“Singingfish is the premier audio/video search engine, and Singingfish.com is the place for consumers to find, explore, and experience the universe of free media” Search for both contemporary and classical musicians and songs.