Research Guides: Music Research: Sound Recordings

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CMU School of Music Recordings

This collection of Central Michigan University School of Music (SOM) recordings, available in the Clarke Historical Library, documents diverse musical performances and events performed in the School of Music by its faculty and students, and alumni, as well as guest musicians and artists, 1962-2018.

Central Michigan University School of Music Recordings, 1962-2018
To access the finding aid, click on Finding Aid. On the finding aid page, there is a white search box in the upper right corner where you can keyword search. Or if you wish to browse through the entire box and folder list, click on the hot link underneath NAVIGATE THE COLLECTION on the left side of the page.

Search for Audio

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Streaming Audio

To access these resources from off campus, simply log in using your CMU Global ID and password.

For more information on downloading apps, creating playlists, or permalinks, see the Streaming Audio Guide.

Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
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The world's largest online music library, it offers streaming access to more than 40,740 CDs with more than 583,600 tracks. The library offers the catalogs of more than 50 classical, jazz and world music labels.
Naxos Music Library: Jazz This link opens in a new window
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It offers over 65,000 tracks of jazz from more than 6,000 albums. Over 12,000* jazz artists are represented. Naxos Music Library Jazz comprises the catalogs of Blue Notes Records, 22 labels of Fantasy Jazz and over 150 other labels.
DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) This link opens in a new window
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A scholarly resource of recordings, including CD quality audio, liner notes, and essays from New World, Composer Recordings (formerly Composers Recordings Inc./CRI) and other important labels.

Open Access Streaming Audio

American Memory from the Library of Congress
Contains sound recordings from collections at the Library of Congress. These recordings consist of American music, oral histories, and speeches.
Free Music Archive
An interactive library that provides high-quality, legal audio downloads from many genres. All the audio on this site can be downloaded for free and has been cleared for certain uses (remix projects, production soundtracks, etc.) that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright laws.
National Jukebox
The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge.

Searching: Streaming and physical recordings

To locate streaming audio in Smart Search, after searching, limit Material Type to "Audio" and Availability to "Available online" to the left of your search results.

If you prefer a physical copy of a recording rather than streaming audio, after performing your search simply limit Material Type to "Audio" and Availability to "Available on Shelf" to the left of your search results. Physical recordings are held on the 4th floor of the University Library, where listening equipment is also available.

Tips for successful searching

For a specific work, search a combination of composer + work title in the keyword search box.
Include work numbers for works that have a generic title (e.g. symphony, concerto, sonata, etc.).
Musical works are generally listed in the original language of the composer. For example, Mozart’s Magic Flute is listed under Die Zauberflöte and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, or Le Sacre du Printemps, is listed under the transliterated Russian title Vesna sviashchennaia.
Examine the full library record of a recording, including the contents.
Call numbers for sound recordings at CMU are in order of acquisition; therefore, browsing by call number in the online catalog will not produce useful results.