Research Guides
COM 460: Audio Storytelling: Music
- BMIBroadcast Music Inc.
Provides a searchable database of who owns 7.5 million song titles. - Public Domain MusicSearchable list of music in the public domain as well as information about intellectual property with respect to musical works. There are many more sites you might want to explore using public domain music as your search term.
Finding Music Recordings
- American Music This link opens in a new window
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Audio tracks of songs illustrating American history including political campaigns, Civil Rights, and war protest. Terms and Service
- ccMixterA community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.
- Classical Music Library
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Streaming audio server that hosts over 10,000 recordings from the collections of more than 20 independent classical music labels. These recordings range from operas to symphonies to chamber music as well as many contemporary composers. Terms and Service
- Contemporary World Music This link opens in a new window
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Streaming audio of music genres, including reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. Terms and Service
- Creative Commons PlatformsCollections of creative commons music, sound, and more.
- Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) This link opens in a new window
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DRAM contains 3,000 albums from 26 independent labels, representing folk to opera, Native American to jazz, 19th century classical to early rock, musical theater, contemporary, electronic, art, jazz and world musics. Terms and Conditions
- Digital HistoryMusic in the public domain.
- Free PD100% free music, creative commons license, no attribution required.
- Freeplay Musicfree music. Terms of Service
- Frontera ProjectThe Arhoolie Foundation's Strachwitz Frontera Collection of commercially produced Mexican and Mexican-American recordings (the Frontera Collection) is the largest repository of Mexican and Mexican-American vernacular recordings in existence. Copyright and Access
- Internet Archive - Audio ArchiveContains over a hundred thousand free digital recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these files are available for free download. Internet Archive's Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Copyright Policy.
- Josh WoodwardFree music
- Library of Congress Collections with Audio RecordingsOnline audio collections from the Library of Congress' American Memory project. From Thomas Alva Edison's first cylinder recordings to oral histories about September 11, 2001, these recordings document the American experience.. Each collection has a Rights and Access page.
- Live Music Archive (Internet Archive)A community committed to providing the highest quality live concerts in a lossless, downloadable format. Preserves and archives as many live concerts as possible for current and future generations to enjoy. "All music is from trade-friendly artists and is strictly non-commercial, both for access here and for any further distribution."
- mixkitFree music that you can use in projects without providing attribution.
- National JukeboxFeatures more than 10,000 78rpm disc sides issued by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1900 and 1925. Rights and Access
- Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
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Streaming audio of the entire Naxos and Marco Polo catalogues, plus other licensed independent labels. Terms of Use - Naxos Music Library Jazz This link opens in a new window
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Naxos Music Library Jazz is a comprehensive collection of Jazz music available online. It offers close to 20,000 tracks of jazz from over 1,850 albums. Over 500 jazz artists are represented. Naxos Music Library Jazz comprises Naxos Jazz and the 22 labels of Fantasy Jazz. Naxos Jazz, along with Prophone and Proprius. Terms of Use
- Partners In RhymeRoyalty free music and sound effects.
- Smithsonian Global Sound This link opens in a new window
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Collection of traditional, folk and world music. ProQuest Terms and Conditions
- UCSB Cylinder Preservation and Digitization ProjectWax cylinder recordings are the first commercially produced sound recordings, and UC Santa Barbara has digitized nearly 8,000 of them for your free listening pleasure. Copyright and Licensing
- UCLA's DK Wiglus Folk Music ArchiveDJ Wilgus established Folklore studies at UCLA w/ Wayland Hand. Together founded the Folklore and Mythology Program in 1965, and along the way had their students make a lot folkloric type field recordings. Listen to a sample of them here. Copyright and Collections