Music research encompasses a remarkably wide range of scholarly activities — from the analysis of harmonic structures in a Beethoven sonata to the ethnographic study of hip-hop production practices, from the historical reconstruction of medieval performance to the cognitive psychology of musical perception. This breadth reflects the fact that music can be studied as a system of organized sound (music theory), as a body of composed and performed works (musicology), as a cultural practice embedded in specific social contexts (ethnomusicology and popular music studies), or as a cognitive and perceptual phenomenon (music psychology and music cognition). Each of these approaches draws on different databases, source types, and analytical methods. This guide, part of iResearchNet’s How to Do Research series, covers the resources and methods that U.S. college and university students need for research papers on music across all of these traditions.
Academic Databases for Music Research
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale) is the discipline’s primary bibliographic database, indexing journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, conference proceedings, and reviews on all aspects of music — theory, history, performance, pedagogy, ethnomusicology, popular music, and the music industry. RILM covers publications in more than 200 languages and provides abstracts that summarize each indexed item, allowing students to assess relevance before retrieving the full text. RILM uses a detailed subject heading system and classifies entries by time period, geographic region, and topic. Most U.S. university libraries provide access through EBSCO.
Music Index
The Music Index (EBSCO) indexes articles from more than 800 international music periodicals, covering classical, popular, and world music. While its journal coverage overlaps with RILM, Music Index includes more trade and popular music publications (such as Billboard, Rolling Stone, and Down Beat) that RILM may not index, making it particularly useful for research on the commercial music industry, popular music reception, and music journalism.
Additional Databases
JSTOR archives complete runs of major musicology and ethnomusicology journals, including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Ethnomusicology, Music Theory Spectrum, and Popular Music. RILM Music Encyclopedias provides full-text access to reference works on music. Google Scholar provides broad indexing and citation tracking. PsycINFO indexes research on music cognition, music therapy, and the psychology of musical experience. Sociological Abstracts and Communication & Mass Media Complete cover the sociological and media dimensions of music, including studies of music audiences, music industries, and the social functions of music.
Scores, Recordings, and Primary Sources
Music research often requires engagement with primary musical materials — scores (the written notation of composed music), recordings (audio documentation of performances), and archival documents (composers’ manuscripts, correspondence, concert programs, contracts, and other materials produced during the creation and dissemination of music).
Scores and Sheet Music
IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project, also known as the Petrucci Music Library) is the largest free collection of public-domain music scores, hosting more than 700,000 scores and parts by more than 25,000 composers. For research on Western art music, IMSLP often provides access to multiple editions of the same work, including first editions and urtext editions — scholarly editions that aim to reproduce the composer’s original notation as faithfully as possible. Students should note which edition they are analyzing and should be aware that different editions may reflect different editorial choices regarding dynamics, articulation, phrasing, and even notes.
For music still under copyright (most works composed after the early twentieth century), scores must be obtained through music libraries, publishers, or rental agencies. University music libraries typically hold extensive score collections, and interlibrary loan services can provide access to scores not held locally.
Critical editions — scholarly editions that document the editorial decisions made in establishing the musical text, often including variant readings from manuscripts and early prints — are the most authoritative sources for research on specific compositions. Major critical edition projects include the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (J.S. Bach), the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, and the Beethoven-Haus critical editions.
Sound Recordings
Recordings are primary sources for research on performance practice, interpretation, and the history of recorded sound. University music libraries typically maintain collections of recordings in multiple formats (vinyl, CD, and digital). The Library of Congress holds one of the world’s largest collections of sound recordings, with materials dating from the earliest days of recorded sound. The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings archive provides access to one of the most important collections of folk, world, and roots music, with many recordings available for streaming.
Streaming services — Spotify, Apple Music, and others — provide convenient access to recorded music for listening purposes but are not archival sources: their catalogs change, tracks can be removed, and metadata may be incomplete or inaccurate. For research that requires precise identification of recordings (specific performances, recording dates, personnel, and catalog numbers), discographical databases such as Discogs and AllMusic provide detailed recording information that streaming services do not.
Archival Collections
Manuscripts, correspondence, sketchbooks, and other primary documents relating to composers and musicians are held in archives and special collections at libraries and museums worldwide. The Library of Congress Music Division holds manuscripts and papers of major American composers and performers. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts holds extensive collections on music, dance, and theater. University libraries with strong music programs often hold collections related to regional musical traditions, individual composers, or specific genres.
For popular music, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum hold collections relevant to research on popular music history in the United States.
Research Approaches in Music
Musicology (Historical Musicology)
Historical musicology examines music as a historical phenomenon — how musical works were composed, performed, disseminated, and received in specific historical and cultural contexts. Musicological research draws on primary sources (manuscripts, printed editions, archival documents, contemporary reviews and criticism, concert programs, and iconographic evidence) and secondary scholarship (books and articles by other musicologists). The methods are analogous to those used in historical research more broadly: source identification, critical evaluation, contextualization, and interpretive argument.
Students writing musicological papers should consult the American Musicological Society (AMS), which publishes the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS) and hosts an annual meeting. AMS also maintains a digital resources page that links to databases, digital editions, and online archives relevant to musicological research.
Music Theory and Analysis
Music theory examines the structural properties of music — harmony, melody, rhythm, meter, form, counterpoint, and timbre — and develops analytical methods for describing and interpreting how these elements function in specific compositions or across repertoires. Theoretical research involves close analysis of scores, often using specialized analytical notations (Roman numeral analysis, Schenkerian graphs, set-class labels, transformational networks) that convey structural relationships in compressed form.
The Society for Music Theory (SMT) publishes Music Theory Spectrum and Music Theory Online and hosts an annual meeting. Students writing theory papers should be comfortable with the analytical vocabulary and notation systems used in their area of study and should ground their analyses in specific musical examples drawn from scores and, where relevant, recordings.
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology studies music as a cultural practice, examining how music functions within specific communities, how musical traditions are transmitted and transformed, and how music relates to identity, power, ritual, and social organization. Ethnomusicological methods include fieldwork (participant observation in musical communities, interviews with musicians and listeners, audio and video recording of performances), analysis of musical sound and structure, and engagement with cultural theory.
The Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) publishes Ethnomusicology and hosts an annual meeting. The Association for Cultural Equity maintains the Alan Lomax Archive, one of the most important collections of field recordings of folk and traditional music worldwide. Students writing ethnomusicological papers should address ethical considerations related to fieldwork, including informed consent, the representation of research subjects, and the responsibilities of the researcher to the communities they study.
Popular Music Studies
Popular music studies examines commercially produced and mass-mediated music — rock, pop, hip-hop, country, electronic music, and other genres — using methods drawn from musicology, cultural studies, sociology, media studies, and economics. Research in this area may involve musical analysis (examining the harmonic, rhythmic, or timbral features of recorded music), historical research (tracing the development of genres, scenes, or industries), audience research (examining how listeners use and interpret music), or industry analysis (examining the economics of music production, distribution, and consumption).
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) is the primary professional association for popular music scholars. Key journals include Popular Music (Cambridge University Press), Popular Music and Society, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and the Journal of the Society for American Music. For industry data, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) publishes annual reports on U.S. recorded music revenue, and Billboard provides chart data, industry news, and market analysis.
Music Cognition and Psychology
Music cognition and music psychology examine how the human brain perceives, processes, remembers, and responds to music. This approach draws on methods from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and psychoacoustics, and publishes in journals such as Music Perception (University of California Press), Psychology of Music, and Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain. Research topics include pitch perception, rhythm and timing, musical memory, emotional responses to music, musical development in children, absolute pitch, and the cognitive underpinnings of musical performance.
Students writing papers on music cognition should search PsycINFO alongside RILM, because much of the relevant research appears in psychology and neuroscience journals rather than musicology journals. The Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC) hosts biennial conferences and maintains resources for researchers in this area.
Music Education
Music education research examines how music is taught, learned, and assessed in school and community settings. Students writing papers on topics such as instrumental pedagogy, choral methods, music curriculum design, assessment of musical learning, or the effects of music education on cognitive development are conducting music education research, which uses methods from education research and social science rather than the analytical or historical methods of musicology and theory.
The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) is the primary professional association for music educators in the United States. Key journals include the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME, published by NAfME), Music Education Research, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. Students should search ERIC (the education database) in addition to RILM when researching music education topics.
Digital Tools for Music Research
Several digital tools have transformed how music scholars work with musical materials:
IMSLP (discussed above) provides the most extensive free collection of public-domain scores. MuseScore and Sibelius (Avid) are music notation software packages used for creating scores, transcribing recordings, and preparing analytical examples for inclusion in research papers. Students writing theory papers that include musical examples should use notation software rather than hand-drawing or photographing examples from printed scores.
Sonic Visualiser (developed at Queen Mary, University of London) is a free application for viewing, analyzing, and annotating audio recordings. It produces spectrograms, waveforms, and other visual representations of sound that allow researchers to analyze timbral, rhythmic, and pitch properties of recorded music — particularly useful for popular music and ethnomusicology research, where the recorded performance is the primary text rather than a written score.
RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales) is an international project that catalogs the locations of musical sources — manuscripts, printed editions, and libretti — held in libraries and archives worldwide. For students conducting source-based musicological research, RISM identifies where specific manuscripts or early editions of a work are held and provides catalog descriptions that facilitate archival access.
Online databases of musical metadata provide reference information for a wide range of research purposes. Oxford Music Online — which includes Grove Music Online, the discipline’s most authoritative reference encyclopedia — provides detailed entries on composers, performers, genres, instruments, theoretical concepts, and historical periods, each with bibliographies pointing toward further scholarship. Most university libraries subscribe to Oxford Music Online.
Key Journals in Music
The major journals span the field’s subdisciplines. Journal of the American Musicological Society (historical musicology), Ethnomusicology (ethnomusicology), Music Theory Spectrum and Music Theory Online (music theory), Popular Music (popular music studies), Journal of Music Theory, 19th-Century Music, Early Music, and Music & Letters are among the most cited and respected journals in their respective areas. Music Perception and Psychology of Music publish research on music cognition and the psychology of musical experience.
Students should also be aware of interdisciplinary journals that publish music-related scholarship, including Cultural Studies, Social Text, and American Music, which bridge musicology and cultural studies, and Journal of Research in Music Education, which covers music pedagogy and curriculum.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best database for music research?
RILM is the field’s primary database and should be the starting point for any music research project. For popular music and music industry topics, the Music Index complements RILM with additional coverage of trade publications. For scores, IMSLP provides the largest free collection of public-domain music. For foundational and historical scholarship, JSTOR archives the major musicology and ethnomusicology journals.
How do I cite a musical score or recording?
Citation formats for musical scores and recordings vary by style. In Chicago style (the most common citation system in musicology), a score citation includes the composer, title, editor (for critical editions), place, publisher, and year. A recording citation includes the performer or ensemble, the work title, the composer, the record label, the catalog number, and the year. Students should consult their required style guide and, for musicological papers, the Chicago Manual’s sections on musical works and recordings.
Do I need to be able to read music notation to write a music research paper?
It depends on the type of paper. Papers involving music theory or the analysis of specific compositions typically require the ability to read notation fluently. Historical musicology papers may require notation literacy depending on the topic. Ethnomusicological and popular music studies papers may rely more on audio analysis, cultural analysis, and fieldwork than on score-based analysis. Students should discuss notation expectations with their instructor, particularly if the assignment involves analytical engagement with specific musical works.
Where can I find historical recordings of music?
The Library of Congress digital collections include early recordings, radio broadcasts, and field recordings. Smithsonian Folkways provides access to folk and world music recordings. The Internet Archive hosts recordings in the public domain. YouTube provides access to a wide range of historical and contemporary performances, though its metadata is often incomplete and its catalog is not stable. For discographical information (recording dates, personnel, catalog numbers), Discogs and AllMusic provide the most detailed data.
Related Pages
- How to Do Research — Overview of research methods and discipline-specific guides
- How to Do Research on Film and Television — Sources and methods for screen media research
- How to Do Research on History — Archival research and historiographical methods
- How to Do Library Research — Using catalogs, databases, and librarian expertise
- How to Write a Research Paper — Complete step-by-step guide