Music 345B: American Music

As a musician, you'll probably want to look at musical scores! It can be tricky to get Catalyst to show you scores instead of books. This video demonstrates how to use filters to tell Catalyst what formats you want.

Digitized scores are wonderful resources, but how you can use them depends on what platform supports them and whether or not they are still in copyright. Generally speaking, pre-1925 materials should be in the public domain and easily downloaded.  Post-1925 materials will likely only be usable within the host site.

• Digital Collections at the Library of Congress -- A wide array of digitized materials, including early American sheet music, from the Library of Congress.  Use the menus on the left side of the home screen to guide your research.  Also a fantastic site for other kinds of primary sources!

• Internet Archive -- Many libraries use IA to host their digital collections, including sheet music. Public domain materials are freely available, but you can create a free account to digitally borrow materials that are still in copyright.

• The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music  (Johns Hopkins University) -- 30,000+ pieces of music, with a focus on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. Images of the printed music are available if the music is in the public domain.

• Sheet Music Consortium (UCLA) -- Digitized sheet music from more than 30 libraries, including the Library of Congress, Duke, the University of Illinois, and more. NOTE: SMC's site is not updated regularly.  If you are having trouble accessing a score, talk to Karen Olson -- she can probably get hold of it for you via other means.

• Talk to Karen Olson -- Her previous job involved cataloging and digitizing early American sheet music. She knows a lot about it!

Catalyst is not good at searching for scores based on a composer's race, ethnicity, gender, or other identifying characteristics. 

St. Olaf alum Raina Swanson Edson has created a database of scores in our collection by female and BIPOC composers. Use the database below to search for pieces, then follow the links back to Catalyst to see the records there.