Reference Books

Compiled by Lindsey Macchiarella and David Knapp

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
Nettl, Bruno, Ruth M. Stone, James Porter, and Timothy Rice. (1998). The Garland encyclopedia of world music. New York: Garland Pub.

A ten-volume series of books examines world music, excluding popular and Western art music. The first nine books in the series are divided into geographic areas: Africa, South America and Mexico, US and Canada, Southeast Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Middle East, East Asia, Europe, and Australia and the Pacific Islands. These volumes treat the content with pictures, music notation, and an accompanying CD set with over 100 tracks. The tenth volume covers scholarly activity in these areas and is divided into two parts: primary ethnomusicologists in each geographic area, and resources and research tools for each geographic area.

This series is a comprehensive collection of music from around the world. Though it may lack specificity in many areas, it serves as an excellent primer to a scholar interested in knowing where to begin. In this vein, this series is an excellent resource for those teaching World Music Cultures.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Sadie, S., & Tyrrell, J. (2001). The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians. New York: Grove.

This collection of twenty-nine volumes attempts to cover all the world’s music. Unlike world music encyclopedias, its scope is broad and includes the Western art music traditions. Even so, it contains many entries pertaining to world music and includes a bibliography after each entry. Though these descriptions will not be as detailed as those in a collection devoted to world music, entries may be worth examining to get further resources.

World Musics in Context
Fletcher, P. (2001). World musics in context: A comprehensive survey of the world's major musical cultures. New York: Oxford University Press.

A survey of world music, similar to a multi-volume encyclopedia, compressed into one 700-page tome. The first part, some 100 pages, discusses the beginnings of civilization and its dispersions. The second part explores traditional music of Africa, West Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and East Asia. The third and fourth parts treat Europe and the New World, respectively. The fifth part investigates modernity and global processes of change.

The scope and organization of this book are dubious. It is not as comprehensive as other collections, providing less information and detail. Also, its organization is partially geographic, while also categorizing music in terms of non-European and European. Further, the included plates and musical examples are not as many nor as illustrative as that of larger encyclopedias.

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World. London: Continuum International Publishing Group ltd./ Books, 2003-2005. Web.

An online resource, but nonetheless, and Encyclopeida. Also reads a little more like a textbook than a dictionary, and has sections for each major area of every continent. There aren’t as many pictures, but it is more up to date than Garland’s. It has a lot of bibliographical information, and can be a good starting point for projects.

Link, or search for it in the fsu online catalog.

Encyclopedia of World Pop Music: 1980-2001
Jeffries, S. (2003)

Found on Amazon, so we weren't able to look through this one. However, it contains a sample of pop music, based on records sales, from over 80 countries.

The Dictionary of Global Culture
Citation: Appiah, Anthony, Henry L. Gates, and Michael C. Vazquez. The Dictionary of Global Culture. New York: Knopf, 1997. Print.
Notes: This resource is not necessarily music-related, but still a vital tool for researching the cultural background of a style of music. Cultures can be looked up alphabetically, and it provides fairly detailed descriptions of the group’s practices, history, and religion.
FSU Strozier Library call # CB9.D53 1997 (reference section)

Musical Terms Worldwide: A companion for the Musical Explorer
Citation: Hartong, Jan L, Joep Bor, Simon Mills, Peter . Amstel, and Aleksandra Marković. Musical Terms Worldwide: A Companion for the Musical Explorer. Codarts research, 1. Rome: Semar, 2006. Print
Notes: Terms in this dictionary can be accessed alphabetically. The dictionary is very thorough, and includes western terms as well as those from the rest of the world.
FSU Music Library call # ML102.W67H37 2006

The Ethnomusicologist’s Cookbook
Williams, S. (2006). The ethnomusicologists' cookbook: Complete meals from around the world. New York: Routledge.

This isn’t directly relevant, but I thought it deserved mentioning. Want to read about what leading people in the field (Miller, Rice, Shahriari) eat out in the field? Also, a sonnet about marzipan from Bruno Nettl.