Based out of Milwaukee, the Ward Irish Music Archives were established in 1992 and is dedicated to the preservation of Irish and Irish-American music in all of its forms. Visitors to this remarkable site can browse over 5,000 pieces of Irish and Irish-American sheet music. While some of these ditties are not in the public domain, the collection can be narrowed down by filtering for only publicly...

In Classic v. Modern Violins, Beauty is in Ear of the Beholder [Free registration may be required] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/in-play-off-between-old-and-new-violins-stradivarius-lags.html Aesthetics and Money: Fiddling with the Mind http://www.economist.com/node/21542380 Stradivarius Fails Sound Test versus Newbie...

Whether you love the songs of the 1910s or more recent fare, this fascinating sheet music collection from the Library of Congress is a real find. The database includes "hits and flops" from famous Tin Pan Alley songwriters like Irving Berlin, along with manuscript materials from amateur composers. All told, this database contains materials from over 18,000 shows and productions from the 1690s to...

Since its initial release, iTunes has become a popular favorite with Mac users. Recently, Apple released this free version of iTunes for Windows. For those who haven't tried iTunes yet, the program functions as a digital-jukebox, and includes the ability to listen to over 250 free Internet radio stations and the ability to burn custom playlists to CDs and MP3 CDs as well. Other novel features...

As of late, there are dozens of programs that allow users to customize the iTunes program in a number of compelling ways. Some of them are fairly straight-forward, such as this version of iTunes Remote Control. As its name implies, the application gives users the ability to control iTunes on a remote machine, along with basic playlist support. This version is compatible with computers running Max...

Jamulus is a low-latency streaming audio platform that "enables musicians to perform real-time jam sessions over the internet." Any connection with a bandwidth of over 200 Kbps and a ping time to the Jamulus servers of less than 40ms should suffice. If none of the public Jamulus servers have sufficiently low ping times, users may opt to run their own server as well. The Getting Started page on the...

Not so long ago, young people in the United States borrowed extensively from European consumer fashions and tastes to create trends in a variety of areas. For a time in the early 1990s, all things that dealt with former Communist regimes were all the rage, and Anglophilia has been a common condition since the cult of people who have found Queen Elizabeth and the Beatles fashionable. These days,...

For fans of jazz, the Jazz Old Time site will be a fun way to listen to few well-known chestnuts from the early days of this musical idiom. Of course, those who don't know much about jazz will appreciate listening to a few new artists as well. The site features over 18,000 songs in the public domain, and visitors can browse through the selections by artists or take a look at a few sample...

Journalist Marc Myers has been writing JazzWax, his award-winning daily jazz blog, since the summer of 2007. Along the way, he has interviewed over 300 jazz, rock, and R&B musicians, commented on rare and contemporary jazz recordings, and reviewed performances of all kinds. Jazz enthusiasts will find much to love on the site, where they may start by reading the most recent entries before delving...

In his decades of musical engagements, Jerry Garcia played 3,947 shows with 27 bands and over 77 musicians. This giant site chronicles the "long strange trip" of Jerry's musical, professional, and personal lives. Readers may like to begin with Jerry's Story, a visually appealing timeline that narrates the musician's fascination with rock and roll from an early age, as well as his brief stint in...