Listen to music via Carleton's subscriptions
- DRAM: Database of Recorded American Music This link opens in a new window
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Access to streaming music and liner notes. The DRAM collection is focused on hard-to-find yet culturally and academically important music. - Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
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An online collection of recordings, mostly Western art music. Each piece includes notes on the work and biographical information about the composers and artists. - Smithsonian Global Sound This link opens in a new window
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Includes audio files from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings comprising a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.
Listen to music for free online
- PandoraTell it a song you liked and it will build a station for you based on that song.
- Last.fmTell Last.fm what you listen to and it will suggest more songs for you.
- Free Music ArchiveThe Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.
- Association for Cultural Equity : Sound Recordings
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Over 17,400 digital audio files, beginning with Alan Lomax’s first recordings onto (newly invented) tape in 1946 and tracing his career into the 1990s. - National Jukebox
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Includes thousands of recordings from the collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
Music available for incorporation into other projects
Music for Carleton-Hosted Use
Carleton College has licenses that allow us to broadcast ASCAP and BMI titles on Carleton-owned media (no social media, such as YouTube or Facebook). For additional rights, you will need to obtain additional licenses.
Royalty-Free Music
Here is a sampling of services that provide music licensed for reuse:
- ccMixter Music DiscoverySearch engine for finding Creative Commons-licensed music.
- Free Music ArchiveThe Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.
- Royalty Free Music - danosongs.comAn artist releasing his music for free.
- NetLabelsNon-profit, high quality, non-commercial, freely distributable MP3/OGG-format music for online download, hosted by the Internet Archive.
- Open Music ArchiveA project in the UK to make music that's in the public domain freely available. Note that not all MP3s will download for us in the USA because some works are in the public domain in the UK but not yet in the USA due to different copyright laws.
- OpsoundArtists making their work available for download and reuse. Please read their license page.
- Royalty Free Music - GettyLists the tracks on the site that are downloadable for free. There are many more tracks available for purchase, though if you're an educator you can apply to get those for free as well.
