Memories of Sounds: An Archiving Project in Two Aural Communities

Documentation, collection, and the storage of music and sound is second nature to the discipline of ethnomusicology. Frances Desmore’s iconic photograph (albeit staged) of a gramophone with Blackfoot leader, Mountain Chief in the early 20th century quite accurately depicts a salient feature of the discipline --- the scholar and the local engaged in the recording of music. The technology and the dress have obviously undergone changes but the photograph continues to echo resonantly. As Jaap Kunst has said and quoted by Seeger, “Ethnomusicology could never have grown into an independent science if the gramophone had not been invented. Only then was it possible to record the musical expressions of foreign peoples objectively.” (Seeger, 1986: 261).

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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