The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920
The initial release of the American Variety Stage collection includes ten sound recordings selected from vintage Edison phonograph Diamond Discs released from 1913-1927. These recordings feature comic skits, popular music and songs--including well-known favorites from the Civil War and World War I--and a dramatic monologue.
Have you ever wondered where swing began? Or the jitterbug? Look no further. In the 1920s, the Savoy in Harlem was home to the Lindy Hop, a popular dance that was soon emulated around the country. Learn about its history, the dancers, and the movies that made it famous.
Black History Music—Detroit Free Press
A timeline of Black music from the 1600s to rap is provided by the Detroit Free Press. Click on the timeline and information pops up on that particular era. This is a nice, quick reference for students.
The WPA California Folk Music Project is a multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians.
Links to composers.
Links to music resources including music graphics.
Creatingmusic.com
is a children's online creative music environment for children of all
ages. It's a place for kids to compose music, play with musical performance,
music games and music puzzles.
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry is a selection of more than 400 items from the Emile Berliner Papers and 108 Berliner sound recordings from the Library of Congress's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection is a multi-format ethnographic field collection of traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old, the tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of Virginia's Appalachian frontier.
Search the Internet for sound effects and musical instrument samples in these file formats, AIFF, AU, and WAVE.
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. In 1940,
Inventing Entertainment: the Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles. Cylinder sound recordings will be added to this site in the near future. In addition, histories are given of Edison's involvement with motion pictures and sound recordings, as well as a special page focusing on the life of the great inventor.
K-12 Resources for Music Educators- Starting Point
Cynthia Shirk, a music teacher, has compiled a list of links that are useful to teachers. A special feature on the page is the Music Box of Sound and Software with complete downloadable music compositions in QuickTime format.
Loads of midi files and lyrics.
Morton Subotnick's Creating Musi
Students can create music through interactive sketch pads and listen to their creations. They can also play with musical compositions by adjusting tempo.
Hundreds of lyrics, including ragtime, gospel, spiritual, and blues music, can be found in the Digital Folk Song database featured at this Web site. Many of the songs have a midi file so you can listen to the tune. A kids Mudcat Cafe has been added that includes making instruments and children's songs.
The Children's Music Workshop is an advocate for music in schools. There are lots of articles, inclduing how to buy an instrument.
National Association for Music Education
This organization presents the National Standards for Music Education plus links to many resources.
Make your own instrument, meet musicians, play Mozart's Minuet game, and learn about composers at this kid friendly site.
Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943 consists of approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia.
Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress.
More than 100 songs, poems, and word searches to download for free.Themes, topics, and holidays such as Groundhog Day, Halloween, and Dinosaurs are included. This is also a commercial site that sells a songbook and CD.
Information about artists under the Sony label.
The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip is a multiformat ethnographic field collection that includes nearly 700 sound recordings, as well as fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States. Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939.
Teacher's Guide: Children's Song Page
Some lyrics and many midi music files.
Included are birthdays, broadway shows, and who was topping the charts. You can also pick a day.
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center).
