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AR Music Anthology Logo with text, 'Your Complete Online Music History & Theory Text'

About A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology

A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology (ARMA) is an extensive collection of music and articles designed expressly as the textbook and anthology for music history and theory courses. A-R's Online Music Anthology contains many more pieces of music than print anthologies, all newly engraved and available online by subscription. (A-R offers complimentary access to instructors, pending approval of their requests.) Instructors can use ARMA in a variety of courses, and create as many course packs as they need. With the multi-author online textbook and pre-set course packs, ARMA is a powerful tool for music history and music theory in the twenty-first century.

Main Features

The main features of A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology make it the music history and theory resource of choice:

  • More than 600 pieces of music (over 7000 pages) from antiquity through the twentieth century;
  • Most works are presented in their entirety rather than in excerpt, and are newly edited and typeset;
  • New online textbook with surveys and more than 50 other peer-reviewed articles;
  • New content added periodically at no additional cost;
  • Easy to adopt by using our pre-set course packs or by building custom course packs;
  • Priced affordably with two ways to obtain ARMA:
    • Student subscriptions $70.00 each for six months use, OR
    • Site licenses $3,000 per year (USD);

Site License

Site licenses are the most efffective way for libraries and other digital humanities centers to serve their communities with this dynamic, new product. Institutional Access is by secure IP authentication and customized for each licensee. Please contact James L. Zychowicz (james.zychowicz@areditions.com) for further information on setting up a site license. Trials are available upon request, and current pricing is $3,000 (USD) per year (price subject to change).

Consistent Presentation

All the music is newly engraved:

  • The Online Music Anthology uses modern engraving practice, including conventional clefs, barring, slurs, and ties;
  • The page size, print area, and music size are consistent and fit on an 8-1/2 x 11 inch page;
  • The contents are optimized to display effectively on the users' platforms and browsers.

Online Accessibility

Conceived for online use, A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology goes beyond print anthologies by making its entire contents immediately available to view or print. All music can be easily previewed onscreen on Macs, PCs, and I-devices, with subscribers having the ability to view and print the entire content of each piece. (The optimal browsers are Edge and Safari.) As a digital product, a subscription to the A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology is affordable, especially in light of the amount of music available and the ease of access to much more content than possible in print anthologies.

Ease and Flexibility

It is easy to search the entire contents of the Online Music Anthology, with the music fully indexed by composer, title, style period, genre, nationality, language, and other parameters. With the A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology, instructors can build customized ourse packs to suit their students' needs. All users can search the entire contents of the Online Music Anthology to find the music you need for your courses and make those selections easily available to your students. Students have access to the worklists for their courses and can also view and print the entire contents of the Online Music Anthology.

Praise for the Anthology

"The A-R Online Music Anthology, with its vast array of music and articles representing essential styles, genres, forms, procedures, and composers, is the music resource of the future. Students will be able to make use of it for many different courses, and teachers will be able to vary their course content with ease from one semester to another."
-Michael Griffel, The Juilliard School

"Among the many virtues of the A-R Online Music Anthology is the opportunity that it has afforded young scholars from a wide array of universities to disseminate their views (in essays on individual composers, works, and various broader topics) on what works in the context of teaching music history to undergraduates. As such, we are indebted both to them and to the project to which they’re contributing. The anthology is a resource I would certainly consider for teaching."
-Allan Atlas, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, The Graduate Center, CUNY

"The essential starting point in planning the undergraduate music history survey for me, conjoined with my own set of learning outcomes, is not the textbook, but rather the anthology.  Does the selection of pieces included tell the story I want to tell?  A-R Editions has taken a leap forward by moving its anthology off paper into the internet, allowing faculty more than ever before to “choose your own adventure,” like the popular series of children’s books.  The options are far from limitless—indeed, in many ways that selection remains as traditional as any existing anthology—but that move away from hard copy both gives more options and opens the door to further innovations, so it is worth celebrating."
-Alice V. Clark, Loyola University

". . . the Online Music Anthology will be useful in any context. The A-R Online Music Anthology and the A-R Online Music History Textbook are legitimate alternatives to traditional print materials and are deserving of serious attention from music schools and the music libraries that serve them. . ."
-Alan Asher, Fontes artis musicae

"The A-R Online Music Anthology has proven to be a rich and nimble resource of score and textual content for our students and faculty. Scores are clean and precise, consistent with A-R’s famously high editorial standards, and cover a wide swath of styles from ancient to contemporary. A further enhancement is the online textbook, with articles written by acknowledged scholars in clear and illuminating prose. Congratulations on this achievement."
-Kevin McLaughlin, retired, The Cleveland Institute of Music

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board for our online textbook includes the following individuals:

  • James P. Cassaro, University of Pittsburgh
  • Jane Gottlieb, The Juilliard School
  • Laura Gayle Green, Florida State University
  • L. Michael Griffel, The Juilliard School
  • Emily Laurance, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
  • Jonathan Rhodes Lee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Mark McKnight, University of North Texas
  • Neil Newton, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • James Parsons, Missouri State University
  • Allen Scott, Oklahoma State University
  • Marian Wilson Kimber, University of Iowa
  • James L. Zychowicz, Editor-in-Chief

Our contributing editors include:

  • Commentaries: Emily Laurance, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
  • Genres & Forms: James P. Cassaro, University of Pittsburgh
  • Music Theory Overview: Neil Newton, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Significant Composers: Jonathan Rhodes Lee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Major Works: James L. Zychowicz, A-R Editions

We are delighted to work with these talented musicians and scholars on this dynamic and forward-looking part of the A-R Online Music Anthology.

Thank You

Thank you for choosing A-R Editions’ Online Music Anthology. We designed the Anthology to be the largest publication of its kind, with easy access to its entire contents online. As you use the Anthology, we welcome you to share your thoughts and comments on this outstanding resource.