Music teachers at all levels need ready access to information about great composers and significant events in music history. The Web contains thousands of pages devoted to classical music, but the quality of these materials varies. The sites listed here contain reliable information to enhance general music and performance classes at all levels. Teachers can use these sites to prepare class presentations and handouts. Students can use these sites to conduct research for essay assignments and to study for tests. To top it off, access to all of the sites listed is free of charge.

www.ipl.org/div/mushist
The Internet Public Library (IPL) exemplifies the best of the Web. A group of librarians and students at the University of Michigan began this project in 1995 for the public good, and they maintain it today with a small full-time staff and funding from the university.

The library contains full-length articles, with photographs and sound, that cover a broad range of subjects, from arts and humanities to social science. You can also find almanacs, calendars, dictionaries, and other reference resources. Special collections for kids and teens make this a site for all ages.

In the Special Collection section, there is an exhibit entitled “Music History 102” (see Fig. 1) by Robert Sherrane of Julliard. This is an impressive collection of articles, period art works, and audio files that take you through the complete history of Western music from the Middle Ages to the present.

The opening page is a concise summary of 1,500 years of music history. The name of each era links to a more detailed article on the period. There are also links to articles about the significant idioms, composers, and historical developments for each time period. Each article displays multiple art works of the period, and you can download musical examples in RealAudio format to demonstrate for your classes. This is a great resource.

My only complaint is that navigating this site involves frequently clicking the Back button on your browser. Fortunately, the site has a nice search utility so you are likely to find what you need. The IPL allows reproduction of its content for noncommercial use, such as classroom teaching and home study. For details on its usage policy, see www.ipl.org/div/about/repropol.html.

w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/classmus.html
The Classical Music Pages site was created by Matthew Boynick, a young orchestra conductor in Germany. Don't worry, though, the site is entirely in English. Here you will find music-history essays, biographies and portraits of famous composers, short audio examples, essays on musical forms, and a dictionary of music terms. The audio examples are available for download in WAV and MP3 formats. Much of the text is extracted, with permission, from the Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, lending considerable credibility.

www.essentialsofmusic.com
Publisher W. W. Norton created this site to promote its Essential Classics CD collection of performances of great classical music. The site contains a glossary of 200 music terms, biographies of nearly 70 composers, and essays on the six major periods in Western music (see Fig. 2).

For each period, you will find essays about socio-cultural events of the time, the context in which the music existed, style characteristics, and great composers. Numerous audio examples are available in RealAudio format. The text content on this site is largely in outline form, and each page is brief and easily digestible for students in middle school and above.

www.stevenestrella.com/composers
During my graduate work, I compiled a database of composer information to help me learn the chronology of music and study for exams. When the Web became popular in 1995, I published this information for use by the public. Today the site has grown to include basic and accurate biographical information on more than 500 composers, a growing number of music history essays, and links to additional information at other Web sites (see Fig. 3).

Over the years, some fine scholars have contributed essays for publication on this site. The material on ancient music is particularly popular because it is so hard to find elsewhere. A stylistic timeline of music history helps put the entire 1,500 years of music history in quick perspective. The site is searchable, and there is a nifty birthday calendar to help you find composers born on a given day of the year. Sometimes that can be a fun way to help students select a composer to study.

There are many great sites to help students and teachers learn about music history. For additional resources, see www.stevenestrella.com/mused/websitings.html. Also, please contact me with your suggestions. If you know a great site for music education, please write to me at steve@stevenestrella.com.

Steven Estrella owns StevenEstrella.com and Shearspire, Inc., creating interactive media for business and education. Dr. Estrella served for ten years on the music-education faculty at Temple University and is on the National Board of Advisors for the Technology Institute for Music Educators.