Library Guides: Contemporary Music: Find Scores

Find Scores

The University of Melbourne has a large music score collection located at the Southbank Library.

Use the Finding Music Scores guide to locate scores in our collections including online, print and manuscript sources.

Real/Fake Books

The Southbank Library has a large collection of Real/Fake Books, held in the High Use Collection on ground floor.

You can search for the music for the song you need by:

Entering the song title into the library catalogue (refine your search to Southbank Library or Music Scores) - MOST songs are searchable this way.
Consulting Seventh String FakeBook Index- this will tell you which Real Book contains the song you need, however, we do not yet hold all the titles in the index. You will need to check the library catalogue or the paper index to make sure the library holds the Real Book you need.
Consulting "Where's that tune? : an index to songs in fakebooks"

Using the following Subject Headings can also be a useful way of browsing our collection of Real/Fake Books.

Online Scores

Australian Jazz Real Book
The Australian Jazz Real Book dedicated to the preservation and distribution of Australian Jazz. The database currently features over 400 sheets of Australian jazz tunes from Australian composers. It is designed for practising and performing musicians, educators and curriculum designers with the opportunity to integrate Australian jazz into music curricula.
BabelScores
BabelScores is an online library of contemporary music, including well-known composers as well as emergent young talents from all over the world. The database offers a large, constantly growing, collection of streaming audio alongside the scores which are available in a virtual booklet format.
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.