Subsonic Update
Due to incompatibility with the University’s multi-factor authentication service, our music streaming server, Subsonic, has been retired. Recordings for subjects have been made available for students in the relevant subject LMS/Canvas sites. Speak with your lecturer if you're unsure.
NOTE: For general listening, Naxos Music Library and other online music services are still available.
Sound Recording databases
- Music Online - Alexander Street PressMusic Online is the broadest and most comprehensive online music resource that cross-searches all of the library's Alexander Street Press music databases.
- Music Online - American SongAmerican Song is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
10,000s of sound recordings are available streaming online via the LIbrary Catalogue. You can also go directly in to the databases linked below.
- Australian Composers Collection on MinervaAustralian Composers Off-Air Sound Recordings.
- Classical Music Library (Alexander Street Press)Multi-label database of Classical music recordings for listening and learning in libraries. Coverage includes music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers. Repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.
- Contemporary World Music (Alexander Street Press)Contemporary World Music delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database will contain important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku and more.
- Jazz Music Library (Alexander Street Press)Jazz Music Library is the largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.
- Naxos Music Library (Naxos Digital Services)Classical music recordings from more than 50 classical, jazz and world music labels
- Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries (Alexander Street Press)World and folk music; also includes spoken word and foreign language recordings.
Search by country, cultural group, etc. Includes liner notes, and cover art.
Open Access Sound databases
- British Library SoundsDigital archive of 12,000 sound recordings.
- Cylinder Preservation and Digitization ProjectUniversity of California's archive of digitized cylinder recordings spanning mid-1890s to mid-1920s
- Internet Archive - Audio ArchiveContains over two hundred thousand free digital recordings.
- Recording PioneersWho's who of sound recorders from 1878 to 1940.
- US National JukeboxMore than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925.
- UbuWebLarge educational resource of avant-garde material in the fields of visual, concrete and sound poetry. It also includes film and sound archives.
CDs & Vinyl Collections
To find sound recordings, do a keyword search on the library catalogue.
Keyword search for online recordings
- specify distinctive words or phrases eg Messiaen
- Modify or Limit Search to Online Music Audio by clicking on the drop down menu
Other Music Subject Research Guides
The following links will take you to further information about how to find music related resources in the University of Melbourne Library: