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Using Music Online

A massive music database from Alexander Street of over 900,000 items.

Overview

As stated previously, under the search bar and "Advanced Search" link on the landing page there are options to browse by category:

Landing page for Alexander Street's Music Online.

As an example, here is what it looks like after I click on "Classical Music" then "Instruments:"

Browsing by instrument in classical music.

I have seven categories to choose from: "Aerophones," "Chorophones," "Electronic," "Ensemble," "Idiophones," "Membranophones," and "Vocalizations." These are instruments categorized by how they produce sound.

Within each of these categories are sub-categories, which are specific instruments in this case. For "Aerophones," you can see how granular some of the sub-categories are ("Flute" exists, but so does "Flute, end-blown," "Flute, side-blown," and "Flute, transverse"). So, you can browse either broadly or narrowly.