Tag: field recordings (Page 2 of 4)

Some of you know that the Music Library has a state-of-the-art audio preservation studio but you may not know much about it or even where it is. It’s located on the third floor at 8 Story Street; David Ackerman is the lead engineer. Recently he produced this 3-minute video about Audio Preservation Services (APS). Take a look, you’ll like it:

In addition to the conducting the day-to-day preservation work of the studio, APS staff contribute to international standards for audio collections and, as part of the joint Harvard and Indiana University Sound Directions project, developed the Sound Directions Toolkit, an open-source software suite to allow audio engineers to automate some of the routine,  repetitive tasks of digitization

Explore the library’s archival collections to hear some of the recordings preserved by APS (some sound files are available only to the Harvard community):

• The Eduard Alekseyev Fieldwork Collection of the Musical Culture of Yakutia, 1969-1990
• The Stephen Blum Collection of Music from Iranian Khorāsān at Harvard University
• The Laura Boulton Collection of Byzantine and Orthodox Musics
• The James Rubin Collection of Indian classical music, 1957-1989
• The Marie-Thérèse, Baroness Ullens de Schooten Collections at Harvard University

Coincidentally, today is UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, a day to celebrate the cultural significance of recorded sound and video and to raise awareness of the urgent need for its preservation. Visit the Coordinating Council of Audio-Visual Archives Associations for a list of events planned by archives and heritage collections around the world.

– Virginia Danielson and Kerry Masteller