Thursday, January 24, 2008

Global Music Archive

from the vanderbilt news service:
Three years ago, Vanderbilt University ethnomusicologist Greg Barz realized that American popular culture was sweeping Africa and could very well threaten centuries-old musical traditions.

He traveled to Uganda and Kenya to begin archiving music and performances before they disappeared forever. Barz’s pilot program set the foundation for The Digital Collection of East African Recordings and helped launch the creation of the Global Music Archive at Vanderbilt University.

The Digital Collection of East African Recordings, the first database in a series of databases in the Global Music Archive, is the largest streaming audio archive of East African music. It consists of more than 2,000 musical performances, most of which were recorded in the field by East African musician Centurio Balikoowa. In addition to its size, the archive is unique in that the artists provide written consent, allowing Vanderbilt the freedom to license and share the music with the world via the Internet.
read the full story here. the global music archives is here. the files stream in real audio and are searchable by artist/group, region, district, language, ethnic group and musical instrument.

1 comment:

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Didn't that dude play outside the Dupont Circle Metro? No, just kidding, it's important to remember that traditions can vanish everywhere, not just old acoustic blues musicians from the U.S. (and electric delta bluesmen, too, for that matter) but from many quarters of the world. I know of your longstanding commitment to world music. Cheers, man. --DG