Exploring Traditional Music on Wax Cylinders: Historical Technologies and Performance Styles
The phonograph has played a crucial part in ethnomusicological research since the last decade of the nineteenth century. This workshop presents a unique opportunity to see a phonograph recording session in action, along with renowned international performers and musicologists exploring past performing practices in non-classical music through critical and reflective debate.
The phonograph has played a crucial part in ethnomusicological research since the last decade of the nineteenth century. Very light and easy to transport, the phonograph was the main machine to use in ethnographic data collections, until challenged by the portable disc recording equipment and wire recording systems in the 1930s.
Exploring Traditional Music on Wax Cylinders: Historical Technologies and Performance Styles workshop will provide a forum for the discussion of historical field recording practices, addressing the use of phonograph recordings in both ethnomusicological research and creative practice, while seeking to connect researchers and performers through critical and reflective debate.
This two-day event will include a mechanical recording workshop, and a series of presentations and discussions by expert musicologists, academics, and musicians, on various aspects of the phonograph field recordings, including research on historical creation, collection, and circulation of ethnographic wax cylinders, focusing on interdisciplinary scholarly research and practice.
