Music

 

Open Textbooks

Open Textbook Collections

Multimedia

  • YouTube
    • Search YouTube by keyterms and try filtering by channel or “Creative Commons” license (these videos are specifically labeled for reuse).

Ebooks in the Library

The CSUSM University Library has an extensive collection of ebooks on a variety of topics. To find what’s available:
  • Go to the University Library homepage
  • Choose “Books and More”
  • Enter keywords and search
  • Use the limiters to narrow by “Full Text Online” to ensure all results can be accessed directly from your computer
  • Limit by “Books” to filter out journals and media
  • NOTE: searching for scores or sheet music will return different results, so try both terms. You can also add the instrument, such as ‘piano’, to focus the results.

Music Ebooks – CSUSM Library

Journal Articles

Consider including journal articles as required or supplemental reading for your courses. Search through our Music databases for articles. Just be sure to direct students to the article by permalink (or static URL) rather than posting the PDF directly in your Cougar Course. This will ensure two things: 1) that we are complying with copyright and publisher restrictions, and 2) that our journal usage is counted (this allows us to justify maintaining our subscriptions).

This page provides examples illustrating how to find permalinks in the Library’s databases.

Please contact your librarian if you are still unsure of how to find the permalink.

Open Access Journals

  • Search for additional Journals
  • Selected Titles
    • Current Research in Jazz –online open access journal designed to publish peer-reviewed articles of original jazz research.
    • JEMS: Journal of Experimental Music Studies – an online peer-reviewed journal devoted to experimental, systems and minimal, and ‘new’ tonal and postmodern music.
    • Music & Politics –  peer-reviewed electronic journal.  Covers impact of politics on the lives of musicians, music as a form of political discourse, and the influences of ideology on musical historiography

Open Courseware

Merlot (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is a compilation of freely available resources for use in higher education, hosted by the California State Universities.
    • MIT Open Courseware
      An extensive series of online courses. Courses generally include lecture videos, assignments, exams, and more. For Music, select the Topic: Fine Arts and Subtopic: Music to view the music history, performance and theory subsets.
    • OER Commons
      Searchable by discipline and academic level, this site provides a broad range of instructional materials, including texts, images, videos, primary sources and more.
    • Open Yale Courses
      These courses provide syllabi and video lectures on a variety of topics.
    • Providing online courses and guides for students to access and learn for their own enjoyment and educational purposes.
    • Basics on instruments and a limited number of courses via videos.
    • Music & Performing Arts courses, via Open Culture list of free online courses

     

Other Open Educational Resources

  • IMSLP: Petrucci Music Library
    Sharing the world’s public domain music. The contents include searchable scores and recordings.
  • Mutopia project free scores
    free to download, print out, perform and distribute.
    1770 pieces of music are now available. search by composer or instrument.
  • Sheet music Consortium
    The Sheet Music Consortium provides tools and services that promote access to and use of online sheet music collections by scholars, students, and the general public. It is fully searchable.
  • Harvard: Online Resources
    including historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, composition, and performance practice with links to archival collections, online scores and sound recordings and more.
  • RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales
    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.
  • American Memory-Library of Congress
    List of scores available online

Other CSUSM Library Resources

More information about finding and using library resources can be found on the Music submenu of the Visual and Performing Arts Research Guide.

Suggestions

Have a good idea for a free resource? Tell us about it! Email your subject specialist.