Library Guides: Contemporary Music: Sound Streaming &amp; Audio

Required listening lists

Required listening lists 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.

Online Sound Recordings

Music Online This link opens in a new window
Music Online brings together on a single cross-searchable platform the entire suite of Alexander Street Press music products that the Library subscribes to. With Music Online, Alexander Street Press aims to provide the most comprehensive database in streaming audio, video, reference, and scores on the web.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Naxos Music Library is the most comprehensive collection of classical music available online. The Naxos Music Library offers streamed audio recordings from the complete catalogues of the Naxos and Marco Polo labels and selected recordings from over 640 other independent labels including EMI, Warner Classics and Sony Classical. Additional resources include music notes, cover artwork, tracklistings, instrumentation and publisher information, libretti and synopses of more than 700 operas, composer and artist biographies, pronunciation guide for composer and artist names, glossary, guide to musical terms and work analyses.
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) This link opens in a new window
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) This link opens in a new window
Jazz Music Library has a large comprehensive collection from legendary record labels and the list of artists is enormous. Content is added on a regular basis. The aim of Jazz Music Library is to release new content monthly and focus is on releasing a large number of albums. Indexing is included for each album and includes detailed instrumentation and performer information.
Music Online - American Music (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
American 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.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new window
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries, produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.

Digital Collections on Minerva
Digitised collections at the University of Melbourne.
Australian Composers Collection on Minerva
Australian Composers Off-Air Sound Recordings.

Other Online Sound Recordings

(Open Access)

Australian National Film & Sound Archive
The nation’s living archive – collecting, preserving and sharing our rich audiovisual heritage. Includes an indigenous collection.
British Library Sounds
Digital archive of 12,000 sound recordings.
CHARM: The AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music
A partnership of Royal Holloway, University of London with King's College, London and the University of Sheffield, CHARM's aim was to promote the musicological study of recordings, drawing on a wide range of approaches ranging from computational analysis to business history.
EVIA Digital Archive
Digital archive of ethnographic video maintained by Indiana University and the University of Michigan.
Internet Archive - Audio Archive
Contains over two hundred thousand free digital recordings.
Phonobase: Disques et cylindres de la Belle Époque en ligne = Early Gramophone Records and Phonograph Cylinders On-line Database
Phonobase gathers sound excerpts and photos taken from early cylinders and records made from 1888 to 1914 approximately, mainly distributed in France and Europe.
Recording Pioneers
Who's who of sound recorders from 1878 to 1940.
Sounz - Centre for New Zealand Music
SOUNZ champions and promotes the music of Aotearoa New Zealand
UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive
University of California, Santa Barbara's archive of 8,000 digitized cylinder recordings. (Coverage: mid-1890s - mid-1920s)
US National Jukebox
More than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925.
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The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings.

CD & Vinyl Collections

To find sound recordings, do an advanced 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

Vinyl recordings

Southbank Library also holds a large collection of sound recordings on vinyl. They are in closed access but can be requested and listened to in the library. They are not available for loan. Please ask at the Service Desk if you need assistance.

Sound Recordings for Research

The library catalogue is a key resource for finding sound recordings held in the library. Here are some tips for searching:

Search by instrument, region, style, genre, performer, time period, composer, title of work.
In the initial search screen, you may limit your search to CD Collections or Online Music Audio.
To widen your search to include vinyl records, go to Advanced Keyword Search and select Sound Record under the Material Type menu.
You may also search by subject, for example Musicology, or Ethnomusicology. These subjects can be combined with other terms (for example, time period, genre, region, or instrument) to narrow your search.