Research Guides: Music & Sound Studies: Find Articles

Tip: Peer Reviewed Articles

Peer reviewed articles are:

written by experts in the field
use terms and language that are discipline-specific
assessed for validity and scholarly rigor by other experts in the field before publication (peer review)
published by professional organizations or societies, universities, research centers, or scholarly presses

Strategies for finding peer reviewed articles:

Use a library database and limit your search to only peer reviewed articles, you may also see phrases like Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals.
Learn if a journal is peer-reviewed:
- Some databases allow you to click on the journal title to get more information about it.
- Or check the journal's website to see whether or not the journal uses a peer-review process in its publishing practices.

Library Databases

Academic Search Complete
Academic and peer-reviewed articles from 11,000+ journals in most subject areas. Full text for many (but not all) articles.
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology (DDM) is an international database of bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, as well as in related musical, scientific, and humanistic disciplines.
Duke University Press Journals Online
Duke University Press is an academic publisher of books and journals (full text) across humanities, social sciences, and more.
JSTOR
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Our subscription is generally limited to full text coverage from the beginning of each publication to about 3-5 years ago.
Project Muse (Basic College Collection)
Scholarly journals and ebooks in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
RISM (International Inventory of Musical Sources)
The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - International Inventory of Musical Sources - is an international, non-profit organization that aims to comprehensively document extant musical sources worldwide: manuscripts, printed music editions, writings on music theory, and libretti that are found in libraries, archives, churches, schools, and private collections.
Social Science Premium Collection
Provides abstracts, indexing, and full-text coverage of journal articles, books, dissertations, and more, including over 4,300 full-text titles. Subjects covered: anthropology, criminology, economics, education, international relations, library science, linguistics, political science, public policy, social work, and sociology.

Finding Journals

Are you wondering if we have a particular journal? Do you have a citation like the following and want to know if the article is available in one of our databases?

Kajikawa, Loren. ""Young, Scrappy, and Hungry": Hamilton, Hip Hop, and Race." American Music, vol. 36 no. 4, 2018, p. 467-486.

The name of the journal in the citation above is American Music. To find out if we have access to this journal, do a title search for American Music in our EBSCO FIND A JOURNAL.

This shows that the full text of articles from American Music are available in our database Project Muse from 03/01/2009 to present. Since our citation above shows that the article we want is from 2018, we should be able to find it in this database.

Journals

Acta Musicologica
Acta Musicologica is the peer-reviewed journal of the International Musicological Society. It is published semiannually and contains articles on musicological research of international importance. Acta is indexed and abstracted by all the major citation indexing services and bibliographic databases.
Computer Music Journal
Published continuously since 1977, Computer Music Journal covers a wide range of topics related to digital audio signal processing and electroacoustic music. Computer Music Journal is an essential resource for musicians, composers, scientists, engineers, computer enthusiasts and anyone exploring the wonders of computer-generated sound.
Contemporary Music Review
Contemporary Music Review is an interdisciplinary forum for research in and about music now. Our themed issues feature articles and essays across a broad spectrum of global contemporary music research as well as reports, bibliographic studies, interviews, scores and translations. Interested guest editors may submit proposals for themed issues addressing any topic in contemporary music studies, including analytical, cultural, environmental, historical, scientific, social, and technological approaches. We only publish themed issues; there are no general issues.
DownBeat
DownBeat is your backstage pass to the world of jazz. Every issue includes profiles of the greatest musicians on earth, along with dozens of album reviews, a critical look at the latest musical gear and our world-famous Blindfold Test. As the journal of record for improvised music, DownBeat is an excellent resource for scholars, educators and historians seeking insights into the latest musical movements and the artists driving them.
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is an international, peer-reviewed journal published three times a year by the University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for Ethnomusicology. It features scholarly articles representing theoretical perspectives and research in ethnomusicology and related fields, as well as book, sound recording, film, video, and multimedia reviews.
Journal of Music Theory
he Journal of Music Theory fosters conceptual and technical innovations in abstract, systematic musical thought and cultivates the historical study of musical concepts and compositional techniques. The journal publishes research with important and broad applications in the analysis of music and the history of music theory as well as theoretical or metatheoretical work that engages and stimulates ongoing discourse in the field. While remaining true to its original structuralist outlook, the journal also addresses the influences of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, cognitive sciences, and anthropology on music theory.
Latin American Music Review
atin American Music Review explores the historical, ethnographic, and socio-cultural dimensions of Latin American music. Each issue contains film, record, and video reviews. Articles appear in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Leonardo Music Journal
Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ) is devoted to aesthetic and technical issues in contemporary music and the sonic arts. Each thematic issue features artists and writers from around the world, representing a wide range of stylistic viewpoints.
New Sound: International Journal of Music
ew Sound International Journal of Music is a peer reviewed academic periodical. It promotes musical creativity and theoretical concepts about music – musicological, ethnomusicological, analytical, phylosofical, aesthetical, etc. While presenting Serbian contemporary and traditional music worldwide, New Sound also deals with provocative issues on music and scientific problems concerning music in other countries as well.
Popular Music
Popular Music is an international multi-disciplinary journal covering all aspects of the subject from the formation of social group identities through popular music, to the workings of the global music industry, or how particular pieces of music are put together.
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture.