Music

General Music Resources

An Abridged History of Western Music in 16 Genres (video): Fun video demonstrating how one song can be very different when performed in different musical genres.
AllMusic: AllMusic offers a broad online database of recorded music.
Archive of Recorded Church Music: Preserving a unique & priceless recorded heritage from choirs of gentlemen & boys singing in the English Cathedral tradition. Includes records, radio and TV broadcasts, church services, concerts, and documentaries from the early 1900s through today.
BBC: Culture: Music: An essential guide to music on the BBC and beyond, this site has news, reviews, links to streaming music radio, and special features.
The Black Music History Library: This is a living collection of books, articles, documentaries, series, podcasts and more about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day. Resources are organized chronologically and by genre for ease of browsing.
BMI: Large database of information on millions of song titles. Searchable by author, title, or publisher.
Chrome Music Lab: Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments.
DrummerWorld: Drummerworld is a noncommercial site – about Drums and Drumming for Drummers … The intention is, that the site should be kept clean, fast and free of charge for all drummers and friends.
Genius: Music news, charts, lyrics, and videos.
Google Arts & Culture: Check under ‘Play’ for Music activities, or look for Music in the Search box to locate numerous articles, podcasts, videos, games, and interactives. Popular offerings include Blob Beats, Blob Opera, Paint With Music, Learning About Music, and Family Fun Music.
Library of Congress: Performing Arts Encyclopedia: The Library of Congress’s unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, maps, and other materials.
Musipedia: We are building a searchable, editable, and expandable collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes. … You can find and identify a tune even if the melody is all you know. or use a text-based search.
NPR Music: News, reviews, songs, interviews, clips, concerts, streaming music, and much more.
SecondHand Songs: Find out who performed the original version of a particular song, or who covered that song.
Songfacts: Facts and trivia about songs and their artists.
From the Top: From the Top is America’s largest national platform celebrating the stories, talents, and character of young classically-trained musicians. Through live events, NPR and video broadcasts, scholarships, and arts education programs, we empower these extraordinary young people to engage and inspire music lovers of all ages.

Classical

The 15 most famous tunes in classical music: There’s nothing more annoying than humming a tune but not knowing what it’s called or where it’s from. Fear not – here are some of the most famous tunes from the history of music, complete with all the background information you need.
30 of the greatest classical music composers of all time: Classical music history is full of pioneers, practice-devotees and plenty of geniuses. We’ve done our utmost, below, to distil these great men and women into a list of 30 of the very best.
Classic.fm: Classic.fm not only broadcasts classical music but also offers articles about composers, musicians, orchestras, and events in classical music past and present.
Classical.com: Classical World (www.classical.com) is a streaming platform that helps music lovers everywhere find, share and enjoy the best-loved pieces as well as the newest classical talent.
Classical-Music.com: Reviews, news, articles and recordings from the BBC.
Classical Music Eras: A History of Classical Music: The term “classical music” describes orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, and solo performance pieces, yet within this broad genre, several distinct periods exist. Each classical era has its own characteristics that distinguish it from classical music at large.
Limelight Magazine: Classical Music: News and reviews from Limelight magazine.
NPR: Classical: Articles and podcasts about classical music, composers, and musicians.
liveabout: Classical Music: This collection covers the best classical composers, performers, and conductors, past and present, as well as the most iconic symphonies and operas in the world. Learn the stories behind these incredible works of art and let yourself get swept away by their movements.

Instruments

All the Musical Instruments of the World

Illustrated list with descriptions and a number of videos.

More than just recordings of classical music, and for more than just kids, this site is an introduction to music, music theory, intruments, and composers, with a weekly podcast available online as well as at a number of radio stations.

A Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Instruments

Descriptions, photographs, and links to other sites about more than thirty medieval and renaissance instruments.

MOMI: Museum of Musical Instruments

Site about American music, especially focusing on the guitar.

Musical Instrument Guide

An illustrated guide to [t]he evolution, mechanisms, and playing methods of a range of instruments. From Yamaha.

National Music Museum

Features images from its extensive collection of historical instruments.

The Orchestra: A User’s Manual

Information about the orchestra, orchestration, composition and instruments, for the benefit of anybody with an interest in the subject. Includes video and audio clips, illustrations, and tips for musicians.

World Instrument Gallery

A gallery of world instruments from a museum in Vancouver.

Sounds of Instruments

Check out these pages and videos for some examples of how instruments sound:

Jazz

All About Jazz: A site produced by jazz fans for jazz fans. Our mission is to provide information and opinion about jazz from the past, present, and future. Tons of info and links, video, podcasts, and free mp3s.
Binghamton Music and Jazz Festival: Annual festival taking place in downtown Binghamton every July.
A History of Jazz Music: Selections from a book about the history of jazz from 1900 – 2000.
Jazz at Lincoln Center: Includes videos, radio shows, photographs and other information about shows performed in Lincoln Center in New York City.
Jazz Roots: Information on the history of jazz in its beginnings.
JazzTimes: Published since 1970, JazzTimes—“America’s Jazz Magazine”—provides comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the jazz scene. Often controversial, always entertaining, JazzTimes is a favorite of musicians and fans alike.
NPR: Jazz: Articles and podcasts about jazz music, composers, and musicians.
A Passion for Jazz: Lots of information and links about jazz. Site includes many jazz books, cds, etc. for sale.
Smithsonian Jazz
Smithsonian Spotlight: Jazz and Blues: Sites about jazz history and appreciation from the Smithsonian museum.

Lyrics and Sheet Music

AZLyrics: We have a large, legal, every day growing universe of lyrics where stars of all genres and ages shine.
Choral Wiki: Begun in December 1998, CPDL is one of the world’s largest free sheet music sites. You can use CPDL to find scores, texts, translations, and information about composers.
Genius.com: Lyrics, news, artist information, videos, and more.
Historic American Sheet Music: The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920. (Duke University Library)
IMSLP / Petrucci Music Score Library: Our goal is to create a virtual library containing all public domain music, as well as music from composers who are willing to share their work with the world without charge. Includes over 550,000 scores from over 150,000 works.
International Lyrics Playground: Song lyrics from around the world. Foreign language lyrics, Christmas and holiday lyrics..
KIDiddles: Mojo’s Musical Museum: Here you can find the lyrics to a favorite kid’s song.
Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection: Browse over 30,000 pieces of American popular music, dating as far back as 1780.
Library of Congress: Sheet Music: Access multiple collections with thousands of pieces of sheet music online, primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Lyrics.com: Lyrics.com is a huge collection of song lyrics, album information and featured video clips from endless number of artists…
MetroLyrics: MetroLyrics is the most popular lyrics website worldwide, boasting the most comprehensive database of legal lyrics in the world with over 1 Million titles.
Musopen: Free sheet music, royalty free music, and public domain resources.
Mutopia: Sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These are based on editions in the public domain, and include works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, and many others. Also has some midi files.

Miscellaneous Genres

Gilbert and Sullivan Archive: Links to everything about Gilbert & Sullivan: summaries, librettos, scores, audio files, biography, companies, newsletters, images, and more.
Hip Hop: A Culture of Vision and Voice: Like a powerful star, this dance-party scene quickly drew other art forms into its orbit. A growing movement of hopeful poets, visual artists, and urban philosophers added their visions and voices by whatever means available.
Hiip Hop History: From the Streets to the Mainstream: A new era was on the rise fueled by sentiments of anger, hardship, and abandonment. However, the emerging hip hop movement transformed despair and racial barriers into numerous creative outlets. It also became an outlet to deal with violence.
NPR: Music: Stories, videos, podcasts, and recordings about classical, jazz, modern, and music of all types.
OddMusic.com: Oddmusic.com is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments.

Music Theory

Ableton – Learning Music: Free online interactive music theory textbook with practice lessons.
Alan Belkin Music: Writings on musical technique from a composer and pianist.
edX: Music & Arts Courses: Free university classes in music theory and appreciation.
Learn to Read Music with This Easy Lesson: You may not necessarily ~need~ to know how to read music to play music, but it certainly helps! Get started with this lesson.
LenMus – Free Open Software for Music Rheory: LenMus is a free program for learning music theory. It allows you to focus on specific skills and exercises, on both theory and aural training. … It also includes an score editor.
Lightnote (freemium): Interactive online music theory tutorial, with easy to follow color-coded interface.
MusicTheory.net: Online lessons and interactive training modules for learning music theory.
Music Tutor (mobile): An app to [d]evelop your speed and accuracy in reading sheet music by identifying music notes in timed sessions.
Open Music Theory: Open Music Theory is a natively-online open educational resource intended to serve as the primary text and workbook for undergraduate music theory curricula.
Teorïa: Tutorials, exercises, articles, and other music theory information.
Theta Music Trainer: While most of the material here requires a subscription, the site also offers a free introductory course for ear training.
Tone Savvy: Free online music theory tutorials, available both with and without sound, are a part of this subscription-based site.
Toned Ear: Ear Training: Offers free exercises to help develop your ear. Also available as an app.

Opera

Glimmerglass Festival: Glimmerglass is a professional non-profit summer opera company dedicated to producing new productions each season. Based in Cooperstown New York.
The Metropolitan Opera: Site of New Yorks’ Metropolitan Opera. Includes video clips of past performances.
Opera of the Future: Explores concepts and techniques to help advance the future of musical performance, composition, learning, and expression.
OperaVision: Watch live streams as the operas themselves unfold in the opera house. View your favourite performances, subtitled, on demand. Learn about the art form and specific productions by browsing our richly populated digital library, stories, and articles.
Tri-Cities Opera: IIn keeping with the history of our founders, Tri-Cities Opera’s mission is the production of professional quality opera using the talents of young artists. TCO sets the standard for artistic excellence while enriching, enhancing, engaging & educating our community through the power of live musical storytelling.

Rock

New York Times: Rock Music: Articles about rock and rock musicians both in the U.S. and around the world.
Open Vault: Rock and Roll: A video series from WGBH explores the musical styles, influences, and complex creative processes that have allowed rock to endure…. Rock & Roll is an extensively researched and revealing history built on stories from and about the innovators who defined the music…
The Origins and History of Rock Music: The history of rock music has been volatile and unpredictable as the genre has constantly redefined and reinvented itself since its emergence in the late 1940s.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Exhibitions and information on rock and roll history and personalities.

Streaming Music

Free Downloads

Sound Effects

Remember!
Just because something is free to listen to or free to download doesn’t make it free of copyright!

Be sure to check the License information for each site or artist to see the permissions for their files before you share or reuse it!