Music: Find Primary Sources

Video tutorials

Reception history

RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals
An international annotated bibliography of writings on musical history and culture, found in music and culture periodicals published in seventeen countries between 1766 and 1962.
Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and international copyright law.
JSTOR
Fulltext archive of core scholarly journals and 19th century British pamphlets.
Access is restricted to current students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the University of Saskatchewan, and walk-in users, for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and international copyright law.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times
A full-text and full-image newspaper archive, with content from 1851-2013, digitized from microfilm. The paper is searchable from cover to cover, including images, advertisements, and articles. Each page is available as a downloadable PDF.
Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and walk-in users, for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and international copyright law.
Times Digital Archive: 1785-2019
The complete digital edition of The Times (London), from 1785 to 2009, can be searched using advanced search techniques, or browsed by date. Search results include "full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching."
Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and walk-in users, for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and international copyright law.

Manuscripts, facsimiles, and early printed editions

DIAMM
A leading resource for the study of medieval manuscripts. Includes images and metadata for thousands of manuscripts, scholarly resources and editions, and digital restoration of damaged manuscripts and documents.
Europeana
A portal that acts as an interface to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe.
RISM
The International Inventory of Musical Sources - Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - is an international, non-profit organization which aims for comprehensive documentation of extant musical sources worldwide. These primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. More information about special collections in music can be found at: https://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/guide/spcmus.html

A concise overview of the term "sources" from David Fallows can be found in The Oxford Companion to Music.

Primary sources for music may include

letters and diaries
manuscripts and early printed editions of scores
annotated scores used for early performances
reviews of first and early performances
sound recordings, including recording-session masters and out takes
film footage of performances, rehearsals, and people involved in creating the music
ethnographic films and folklore collections
musical instruments and equipment of all kinds.

Research Methods Primary Sources

AM Research Skills
AM Research Skills is an online learning tool for primary source literacy that can be used in classroom-based and online teaching, as well as for independent study.
Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and walk-in users, for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and international copyright law.