Music: eBooks in the Library
General guide to research-for-writing in music
The Library Catalog
The library holds a large number of books, about, and related to, music. Below is just a small, eclectic, sample of the eBooks the Library holds.
eBooks will be particularly valuable through Summer 2020 quarter. eBooks from the Library can be accessed from anywhere you have a connection, and are included in the price of your tuition!
To limit your catalog book searches to eBooks only, you will see a menu to the left where you can "Limit Search Results": click "eBooks" and then "Include." Try it out, below:
Looking for eBooks? You can use the catalog above, limiting to eBooks, or you can go directly to TCC Library's eBook databases. Try them out:
- Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Over 180,000 electronic books, with broad coverage on academic topics. Viewable with your web browser; also downloadable to e-readers or e-reader apps with some restrictions. - eBook Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Over 200,000 electronic books, covering a large selection of multidisciplinary academic subjects. Books can be read through a web browser or downloaded. - Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Digitized reference works, covering many disciplines. Very useful for background information on a topic.
Music history examples
Film music: A history by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2008Film Music: A History explains the development of film music by considering large-scale aesthetic trends and structural developments alongside socioeconomic, technological, cultural, and philosophical circumstances.
Assimilate: A critical history of industrial music by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2013Assimilate is the first serious study published on industrial music. Through incisive discussions of musicians, audiences, marketers, cities, and songs, this book traces industrial values, methods, and goals across forty years of technological, political, and artistic change.
Bad vibrations: The history of the idea of music as a cause of disease by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2016Music has been used as a cure for disease since as far back as King David's lyre, but the notion that it might be a serious cause of mental and physical illness was rare until the late eighteenth century. At that time, physicians started to argue that excessive music, or the wrong kind of music, could over-stimulate a vulnerable nervous system, leading to illness, immorality and even death. Since then there have been successive waves of moral panics about supposed epidemics of musical nervousness, caused by everything from Wagner to jazz and rock 'n' roll.
Music theory examples
From scratch by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2015Selections focus on Tenney's fundamental concerns--"what the ear hears"--and include thoughts and ideas on perception and form, tuning systems and especially just intonation, information theory, theories of harmonic space, and stochastic (chance) procedures of composition.
Music theory secrets: 94 strategies for the starting musicianCall Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2014Tip: You may need to log in with your portal credentials to view this e-book. A full range of methods to help musicians, not only grasp, but remember those key elements upon which the music they play is built: pitch, rhythm, scales, key signatures, and harmony.
Composing for the cinema: The theory and praxis of music in film by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2013Morricone and musicologist Sergio Miceli present a series of lectures on the composition and analysis of film music. Adapted from several lectures and seminars, these lessons show how sound design can be analyzed and offer a variety of musical solutions to many different kinds of film.
Musimathics: The mathematical foundations of music by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2006A commonsense, self-contained introduction to the mathematics and physics of music; essential reading for musicians, music engineers, and anyone interested in the intersection of art and science.
Ethnographic, biographic, & performance examples
Karaoke idols: Popular music and the performance of identity by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2015Karaoke Idols, a close ethnography of life at a karaoke bar that reveals just what we are doing when we take up the mic – and how we shape our identities, especially in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class, through performances in everyday life.
The musician's way: A guide to practice, performance, and wellness by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2009Part I, Artful Practice, describes strategies to interpret and memorize compositions, fuel motivation, collaborate, and more. Part II, Fearless Performance, lifts the lid on the hidden causes of nervousness and shows how musicians can become confident performers. Part III, Lifelong Creativity, surveys tactics to prevent music-related injuries and equips musicians to tap their own innate creativity.
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