SEM 2021 Conference

RILM’s resources are gateways to authoritative and comprehensive knowledge, covering a wide range of ethnomusicological scholarship and related fields from anthropology and medicine to organology and sound studies, from different world regions and in over 170 different languages.

RILM’s Global Coverage

RILM Abstracts with Full Text

RILM’s music bibliography enhanced with full-text coverage of 260 journals.

No matter the music, topic, or world region you are researching, RILM Abstracts offers a wealth of information on publications in books and collections of essays, journals, blogs, fanzines, electronic media, and much more. Within RILM Abstracts with Full Text, you’ll find in addition full-text articles from journals as diverse as Black music research journal, Revista Argentina de musicología, Sruti: India’s premier magazine for the performing arts, Zhongguo yinyuexue (Musicology in China), Yearbook for traditional music, The world of music, and Nhạc Việt: The journal of Vietnamese music.

Topics Covered Include:

Popular music
Instruments and voice
Religion and ritual
Dance
Linguistics and semiotics
Social sciences
Dramatic arts

Visual arts
Media studies
Improvisation
Poetry and literature
Sound recording
Pedagogy
Sound studies

RILM Music Encyclopedias

RILM Music Encyclopedias is the go-to source for digitized and fully browsable and searchable music encyclopedias from around the world, with new titles added on an annual basis. Discover ways that RME can help you uncover hard-to-locate information.

Titles available include:

The Garland encyclopedia of world music (and its concise edition)
Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire
Enciclopédia da música brasileira: Erudita, folclórica, popular
Biographical dictionary of Afro-American and African music
Encyclopedia of the blues
Das Blasmusik-Lexikon
Steirisches Musiklexikon
Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente, zugleich ein Polyglossar für das gesamte Instrumentengebiet
Diccionario biográfico – bibliográfico – histórico – crítico de guitarras
many other lexicons devoted to instruments, from all over the world

a collection of encyclopedia covers that highlight the coverage of Black music

MGG Online

MGG Online is the preeminent encyclopedia for music researchers worldwide. With ever-expanding content, MGG offers a fresh perspective on topics ranging from popular music to the musical cultures of regions, countries, and cities.

Africa south of the Sahara by Artur Simon and Gerhard Kubik
Afghanistan by John Baily
Arabic music by Amnon Shiloah
Argentina by Gerard Béhague, Juan Pedro Franze, Julio Mendívil, and Deborah Schwartz-Kates
Chinese theater by Martin Gimm
Didjeridu by Margaret J. Kartomi, Robin Ryan, Darren Williams
Ecuador by Ketty Wong and Robert Stevenson
Egypt by Ellen Hickmann and Laura Lohman
Gong by Gretel Schwörer-Kohl
Gum leaf music by Robin Ryan and Herbert Patten
Indonesia by Rüdiger Schumacher, Henry Spiller, and Margaret J. Kartomi
Inuit by Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Jewish music by Edwin Seroussi (newest version)/ Joachim Braun and Edith Gerson-Kiwi
Qin by Martin Gimm
Sami (Samen) by Doris Stockmann

an image of afghani women playing music is expanded above the MGG online article viewer

RILM’s Coverage of Africa and the African Diaspora

In line with its mission and commitment to be inclusive and boundary-crossing, RILM’s resources point to significant writings on Black music and culture that extend to transdisciplinary discourses as well.

RILM Abstracts has long covered content related to Black music in its broadest sense. This is reflected in its indexing of Black studies as well as key genres including blues, gospel, hip hop, reggae, and soul music; musicians; composers; and related subjects such as dance, art, and pedagogy. In addition to documenting the publications of Black scholars on music, RILM Abstracts has also focused on music and non-music periodicals of interest for researchers in Black studies. RILM Abstracts with Full Text includes the full text of over a dozen key journals relevant to Black music studies. An evolving resource, RILM Music Encyclopedias offers specific reference works that provide comprehensive coverage of the lives and works of performers, composers, and other individuals that have made a contribution to Black culture. And the Index to Printed Music unearths musical pieces in editions such as Black women composers: A century of piano music, 1893–1990 and Songs from the source: Nine African folk songs.

Join Us Live!

Virtual Coffee Sessions

This year at SEM, please join us for virtual coffee sessions, which will be geared towards researching Africa and African diasporas using the full range of RILM resources. During these sessions and Q&A slots, we welcome students, scholars, and other experts to join us for conversations around how we might better expand our coverage of Black music and performance studies.

Thursday, 28 October
- join through Whova
- 12–1pm EST: RILM Resources on Africa and the African Diaspora
- 1–2pm EST: Researching Music of Africa and the African Diaspora in Atlanta
Friday, 29 October
- join through Whova
- 12–1pm EST: Researching Music and Performance of the African Continent
- 1–2pm EST: RILM “Office Hour” (Drop in with your questions or for assistance using RILM for your research)
Saturday, 30 October
- join through Whova
- 1–2pm EST: Researching Music of the Global African Diaspora

Coffee is on us!

Attend one of our sessions to receive your free coffee card.

Download our brochures

Index to Printed Music

The Index to Printed Music (IPM) is the digital finding aid for locating musical works contained in printed collections, sets, and series. IPM indexes individual pieces of music printed in the complete works of composers, anthologies of music, and other scholarly editions. IPM expands every year to include new volumes as they are added to existing sets and series and new editions as they appear on the market.

Editions relevant for ethnomusicologists include:

African-American organ music anthology
African-American theater
Armenian folk songs
Art songs and spirituals: by African-American women composers
梵唄 = Chinese Buddhist monastic chants
Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz / Thesaurus of oriental Hebrew melodies
Jewish folk songs from the Baltics: selections from the Melngailis collection
Piano music of Africa and the African diaspora
Songs from the source: Nine African folk songs

Among other features, IPM’s enhanced version offers hyperlinks of records for pieces that are available as part of open-access editions.

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