SJSU Research Guides: Music: Recordings & Video

Find Audio and Listen to Music

Classical Music Library This link opens in a new window
The growing collection of 50,000-plus tracks includes recordings from the world's greatest labels including Hyperion, Bridge Records, Sanctuary Classics, Artemis-Vanguard, Hänssler Classic, Vox and many more. 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. 3 concurrent users
Jazz Music Library This link opens in a new window
Thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, and albums, with works licensed from legendary record labels, including Audiophile, Concord Jazz, Contemporary Records, Fantasy, Jazzology, Milestone, Nessa Records, and more. 4 concurrent users
Music & Performing Arts This link opens in a new window
Cross search interface for Alexander Street Press music and dance databases.
Music Online: American Music This link opens in a new window
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.
Music Online: Contemporary World Music This link opens in a new window
Delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database contains 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.
Music Online: Popular Music Library This link opens in a new window
Contains a wide range of popular music from around the world, including hundreds of thousands of tracks from major genres in pop music, including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Streaming audio including 253,000+ tracks from Naxos and other music labels. Primarily for classical music, but also includes jazz, world, folk, and other contemporary genres. Full-text content includes opera synopses, libretti, and composer and artist biographies. 5 simultaneous users
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new window
An online listening service and encyclopedia of the world’s musical and aural traditions with more than 35,000 tracks of music, spoken word, and natural and human-made sounds. Includes the published recordings of Smithsonian Folkways and the archival audio collections of Folkways Records and other labels. Also included is music recorded around the African continent for the International Library of African Music as well as material collected on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology. Limited to 3 concurrent users
UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive This link opens in a new window
The UCSB Library, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Grammy Foundation, and donors, has created a digital collection of more than 10,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. This searchable database features all types of recordings made from the late 1800s to early 1900s, including popular songs, vaudeville acts, classical and operatic music, comedic monologues, ethnic and foreign recordings, speeches and readings.

Find Video

These databases include video content related to music, but the library has even more video, including feature films and educational videos. See all of our streaming video databases.

Alexander Street Press

We have a lot of great streaming content from Alexander Street Press, and there are different ways to search that content.

Specialized databases like Dance in Video and Opera in Video narrow your search down to only one kind of video so you don't have to wade through long lists of results.
Broader databases like Academic Video Online and Music & Performing Arts include the videos from the narrower collections, along with a lot of other video, text, and image collections - those databases are great for casting a wide net in your searches.

Different databases work better for different research questions - don't be afraid to try the same search in more than one database to see which will work better for your question.

Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Alexander Street Press Academic Video Online delivers 66,000+ titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.
Dance in Video This link opens in a new window
Subscription is for Vol 1 & 2. A streaming video database of dance productions and documentaries by influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance.
Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new window
Streaming video platform offering stage performances of classic and modern plays and musicals, along with interviews and workshops with playwrights, directors, designers, actors, musicians, and others involved in the playmaking process. Includes behind-the-scenes documentaries as well as teaching and learning resources to facilitate a deeper understanding of the productions and texts.
Music & Performing Arts This link opens in a new window
Cross search interface for Alexander Street Press music and dance databases.
This search option includes both the Dance in Video and Opera in Video databases, but allows you to search other music, dance, and theatre collections at the same time, including text and image collections. This is a good option if your research topic intersects with dance or theatre.
Opera in Video This link opens in a new window
Contains 500+ hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the world’s best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work’s importance to the operatic canon.
PBS Video Collection Fourth Edition This link opens in a new window
This collection of 1,300+ streaming videos includes documentaries and series from science to history, art to Shakespeare, diversity to business & economics, and more.

Music

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Alexander Street Press

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