Music Online: Listening - Package

Music Online

"Music Online is the LexisNexis of music, and it may make the use of many traditional library resources unnecessary."—Booklist

A Booklist 2009 Editors' Choice for Best Reference

Music Online: Listening is the most comprehensive and highest quality streaming audio collection to support the teaching and research of music.  It currently provides streaming access to over 900,000 tracks, including over 45,000 unique recordings that are exclusively available through Alexander Street Press, and is growing monthly as new recordings are added.

The Most Comprehensive Audio Collection

Music Online: Listening provides coverage in breadth and depth across all the key musical genres:

  • Classical: All major genres and time periods from medieval to contemporary, from choral works to symphonies, operas, and the avant-garde.
  • Jazz: All major genres including vocal jazz, bebop, acid jazz, big band, modern jazz, and more.
  • World: Music from 169 countries and more than 1,000 cultural groups.
  • American: Country, folk, jazz, bluegrass, Western, old time, American Indian, blues, gospel, R&B, and shape note singing.
  • Popular: Wide range of popular music from around the world that is not available in our genre-specific collections.

The Highest Quality Publishing Partners

We work with a wide variety of organizations to ensure our collection incorporates the best recordings.

View a list of publishing partners

The Greatest Artists

Here is a sample of the acclaimed artists that feature in our recordings:

  • Classical: Glenn Gould, Placido Domingo, Maria Callas, Claudio Abbado, Olga Borodina, Ileana Cotrubas, Hilary Hahn, Thomas Hampson, Radu Lupu, Karita Mattila, Margaret Leng Tan, Kiri Te Kanawa, Mitsuko Uchida, Pinchas Zuckerman.
  • Jazz: Bing Crosby, Buddy Guy, Charlie Parker, Chuck Mangione, Dinah Washington, Diana Krall, Dixie Dregs, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Stan Getz.
  • World: Ali Jihad Racy, Adama Dramé, Carlos Do Carmo, Parisa, Tran Quang Haï, Katrien Delavier, Hussein El Masry, Rassegna, Oedo Sukeroku Taiko, El Son Entero, Simon Shaneem, I Wayan Sadra, and Fawzy Al-Aiedy.
  • American: Pete Seeger, Isaac Hayes, Al Jackson, Booker T. Jones, Robert Byrd,  Memphis Slim, Otis Redding, BB King, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sweet Honey in the Rock.
  • Popular: Gloria Gaynor, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Kool & The Gang, Edith Piaf, Rod Stewart, The Sex Pistols, A Flock of Seagulls, Tanya Tucker, Naughty by Nature, Wu-Tang Clan, Liberace.

Unique, Rare, and Exclusive Recordings

We ensure our collections include the valuable recordings needed to support effective teaching and research, including:

  • EMI: Almost 50,000 recordings featuring labels such as Blue Note, Virgin Classics, Angel Records, Capitol Records, Chrysalis, and Narada.
  • Universal: Nearly 10,000 recordings featuring labels like Verve, Motown, A&M, Decca, Polygram, MCA, and Island Def Jam.
  • Smithsonian: More than 40,000 recordings exclusively available from the Smithsonian’s archives, including the entire output of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Folkways Records, Cook Records, Dyer-Bennet Records, Fast Folk, Monitor Records, and Paredon Records.
  • Archives: Unique and previously unpublished recordings from important archives including the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University in South Africa, and the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) in India.
  • Specially recorded: Exclusive audio recordings of hundreds of traditional American folk songs by acclaimed folklorist/folksinger Jerry Silverman.

Unique Access Points Drive Discovery

Music Online: Listening incorporates a number of music-specific access points designed to drive discovery for users, including:
 

More than 25,000 distinct classical works. For example, users can browse all works composed by Cesar Franck grouped by their genre.
More than 2,600 distinct instrument categories. For example, users can browse recordings featuring 70 different indigenous versions of a flute.
More than 1,000 distinct genres and sub-genres. For example, users can browse 16 sub-genres within Blues.

 

Powerful Teaching Resources

Our collections include playlist functionality that enables educators to create, annotate, and share thematic playlists of recordings to support their teaching needs.

Playlists link to required listening in popular music textbooks.
Hundreds of curated playlists based around key musical concepts. For example, a playlist of iconic recordings representative of the Mass genre.

Relevance to a Broad Range of Studies

Music Online: Listening is relevant to a broad range of studies, including:

  • World music courses
  • Ethnomusicology
  • Anthropology
  • Folklore
  • Linguistics
  • Social studies
  • History
  • Music appreciation
  • Music history
  • Music performance
  • Performance studies
  • Music analysis
  • Music theory
  • Jazz appreciation

Key Features of Music Online: Listening

  • Advanced search: Additional options* include work/opus #, genre, instrument, time period, place and date of recording, cultural group, language, and historical event.
  • CD quality: Audio streaming up to CD quality (320kbps) at no extra cost.
  • Mobile access: Stream to your mobile device/smartphone.
  • Liner notes: Included whenever available.
  • Custom audio clips: Users can create and share clips from all audio tracks.
  • Embeddable audio:  All audio can be embedded into third party websites.
  • Custom playlists: cCreate, annotate, and share playlists. Access a library of more than 200,000 playlists, including hundreds of pre-programmed playlists to support class instruction, as well as playlists themed around the recordings used in the most popular music textbooks.
  • Permanent URLs: All albums, tracks, clips, and playlists can be cited on permanent URLs.
  • Cross-search: Audio can be cross-searched alongside our related video, scores, and reference material to provide a powerful tool for music research.

*Options available vary by genre