Internet Resources for Music, Theater and Dance

Unless otherwise noted, the sites listed in this directory are provided by organizations other than the Library of Congress. These links are being offered as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Library of Congress of any of the products, services, or opinions of the corporation, organization or individual. The Library of Congress bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality, or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

SHEET MUSIC SITES - databases with music:

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885
From the Music Division at the Library of Congress, this collection consists of more than 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials and music for band and orchestra.

African-American Sheet Music
This collection, selected from the collections of the Brown University Library, consists of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920.

Historic American Sheet Music: 1850-1920
The Historic American Sheet Music collection presents 3,042 pieces of sheet music drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. It contains more than 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American Music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. An image of the cover and each page of music will be retrievable if the music was published before 1923 and is in the public domain.

Inventions of Note: Sheet Music Collection at the MIT Lewis Music Library
Inventions of Note Sheet Music Collection was established in 1977 by the Lewis Music Library at MIT. This sheet music collection consists of popular songs and piano compositions that portray technologies as revealed through song texts and/or cover art. Most items dates from ~1890 to 1920.

SHEET MUSIC SITES - databases only:

19th Century California Sheet Music
A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900.

UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries Music Library 19th Century American Sheet Music
Database with indexed listing of sheet music available. Site still under construction with plans to digitize the collection.

UTK Song Index
An index of over 1400 songs in song anthologies. Citations only.

California Library Systems Cooperative Song Index
104,937 song titles, 1051 items indexed including song books, magazines and other collections.

University of North Texas Catalog of Music Special Collections
This database provides access to popular-music titles from the Music Library's WBAP Collection and Song Collection. It also includes an index of songs published in Sheet Music Magazine and Piano Today.

Center for Popular Music

Bert Buhrman Sheet Music Collection
Database of more than 5000 titles, many from the 1930s, donated to the Missouri, Springfield-Greene County Library by Bert Buhrman.