Part of the British Library’s Sounds project, World & traditional music features tens of thousands of recordings by ethnomusicologists and collectors, including those of the pioneering Africanists Peter Cooke (b.1930), Kenneth Gourlay (1919–95), Hans-Joachim Heinz (1917–2000), Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980), David Rycroft (1924–97), and Klaus Wachsmann (1907–84).
This online resource is available free of charge for noncommercial research, study, and private enjoyment.
Filed under Africa, Ethnomusicology, Resources, World music
Insects in rock ’n’ roll cover art is an article by Joseph R. Coelho, who teaches in the Biology Program at Quincy University.
The article, which can be read online here, was published in American entomologist (L/3 [fall 2004] pp. 142–151). It is part of a larger project called Insects in rock ’n’ roll music, which also includes lists of insect-related songs, albums, and artist names.
Above, a classic Iron Butterfly album cover. Below, ants dancing to Ant man bee from the legendary Trout mask replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band.
Many thanks to the Improbable Research blog for alerting us about Professor Coelho’s work!
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Filed under Animals, Nature, Popular music, Resources, Science, Visual art
Astérix le Gaulois, a series of comics written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo between 1960 and 1999, received much acclaim for the attention to detail in Uderzo’s drawings of ancient civilizations.
Particularly interesting to an organologist are the illustrations of instruments—including carnyx, buccina, lur, bagpipe, harp, lyre, pipes, and drums—used by ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Gauls.
In the free online resource Musical instruments of antiquity as illustrated in “The adventures of Asterix the Gaul” Daniel A Russell compares Uderzo’s illustrations to photographs of period instruments and comments on their acoustic qualities, performance techniques, and the roles they played in their respective societies, both in real history and as experienced by Astérix and his friends.
Above, Uderzo’s depiction of a banquet accompanied by a kithara, a double tibia, and a frame drum.
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Filed under Antiquity, Humor, Iconography, Instruments, Resources, Visual art
Schubert deltiography, a database produced by The Schubert Institute as part of its Schubert ographies website, is an open-access online resource for postcards bearing images relevant to Schubert—portraits, buildings, and so on. In addition to reproductions of both sides of the cards, entries include detailed annotations for deltiologists and other interested parties.
Above, a postcard depicting Schubert playing the “trout” quintet (piano quintet in A Major, D. 667) with Mozart, Haydn, Bach, and Gluck in Heaven (click to enlarge). The audience includes Beethoven and Wagner; leave a comment if you can identify others!
Below, a terrestrial performance of the work’s first movement by members of the Amadeus Quartet with Clifford Curzon.
Related article: Postcards
Filed under Iconography, Reception, Resources, Romantic era
Maintained since 1996 by Charley Pennell, a cataloguer at the D.H. Hill Library at North Carolina State University, Bluegrass discography lists bluegrass singles, LPs, tapes, CDs, and videos by label, performer, and album. Resources for obtaining these publications are also listed.
Below, the legendary Flatt & Scruggs perform Foggy mountain breakdown.
Filed under North America, Popular music, Resources
SPIN: Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms, a free online resource dedicated to the study of the Romantic period in Western culture, includes a database devoted to iconography on banknotes, with a special section for composers. As of this writing 33 portraits of composers on banknotes are documented therein, all with full-color reproductions and many with annotations as well.
Above, Clara Schumann on a German 100-mark note issued in 1989. Below, Antonín Dvořák assissts with instructions for banknote origami.
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Filed under Iconography, Reception, Resources, Romantic era
The open-access online resource John Thompson on the guqin silk string zither presents extensive materials on the guqin (古琴, “goo-chin”) including classic handbooks and commentaries; organological details; depictions of the guqin in art, poetry, and song; notation and sound files; playing instructions; analyses of performance practice; history and ideology; and links to other resources. Detailed information on the author is also included.
Below, Tao Zhusheng performs Guan shan yue (Moon over the mountain pass) in a 1977 film by Robert Garfias. The work is an evocation of the Tang-dynasty poem of the same title by Li Bai.
Related article: Robert Garfias: Ethnomusicology
Filed under Asia, Instruments, Resources
Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections is a multiformat ethnographic field collection documenting traditional cultures throughout Florida in the late 1930s and early 1940s. This free online resource is part of the Library of Congress American Memory series.
Undertaken in conjunction with the Florida Federal Writers’ Project, the Florida Music Project, and the Joint Committee on Folk Arts of the Work Projects Administration, the collection features folk songs and folktales in many languages, including blues and work songs from fishing boats, railroad gangs, and turpentine camps; children’s songs, dance music, and religious music of many cultures; and oral histories.
The website provides access to 376 sound recordings and 106 accompanying materials, including recording logs, transcriptions, correspondence between Florida WPA workers and Library of Congress personnel, and an essay on Florida folklife by Zora Neale Hurston (inset). A new essay by Stetson Kennedy reflects on the labor and the legacy of the WPA in Florida, and an extensive bibliography, a list of related Web sites, and a guide to the ethnic and language groups of Florida add further context to the New Deal era and to Florida culture.
Above, construction workers gathered around the stove in the craftsmen’s barracks at Camp Blanding, Florida, in 1940.
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Filed under North America, Resources
The Biblioteca Digitale of the Conservatorio di Milano was founded in 2007 through the efforts of then-President Francesco Saverio Borrelli, who envisioned the creation of a digital repository of images of the conservatory’s historical documents, searchable and viewable via the online catalog of Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale, Lombardy.
As of 10 November 2011 the Biblioteca Digitale occupies an area of about 5.1 terabytes for a total of 832 papers and 110,419 images
Filed under Resources, Source studies
Devoted to the English composer, pianist, writer, and critic Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892–1988), Sorabji resource site is a complementary resource for the forthcoming critical biography by Marc-André Roberge.
The menu bar offers broad categories (Biography, People, Writings, Sources, Works, Performances, and Miscellaneous) that lead to some 85 pages, each with a search box, presenting resources including lists, compilations, tables, and analytical charts related to various aspects of Sorabji’s life and works. A printed version of the entire site would produce a 350-page book.
Below, John Carey performs Sorabji’s Fantaisie espagnole.
Related article: Sorabji’s marathon premiere
Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Resources
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