African music library goes digital

Music fans can now listen to sound clips on the web thanks to a cataloguing and digitising project by the International Library of African Music (Ilam) at Rhodes University.

The library has digitised and catalogued thousands of songs from across sub-Saharan Africa, which were recorded in the field by Ilam founder Hugh Tracey between the late 1930s and his death in 1977.

Of the 20,000 songs digitised, about 14,000 are available for listening via Ilam's online archive.

The library has digitised popular songs, including Bayete, which was written by RT Caluza and performed by Caluza's Double Quartet in honour of the Prince of Wales when he visited South Africa in 1925.

Other songs that have been made available on the internet are Mfuma Chidekani Africa (God Save Africa) recorded in 1950, Rumba Africa, recorded in 1940 by the Merry Blackbirds Rumba Orchestra, and Song of Africa by Beatrice Mbanjwa and Her Boys, recorded in 1940.

In the course of his field research, British-born Tracey amassed an enormous collection of professionally engineered sound recordings and photographs taken on 19 field trips that took him throughout Southern and East Africa and the Congo.

His 40 years of field recording and research into African music included 12 years of promoting African music as head of the Natal studios of SABC radio between 1936 and 1947, production of numerous commercial 78rpm records with Gallo Records as head of its African Music Research Unit, and publication of his two books, Chopi Musicians in 1948 and African Dances of the Witwatersrand Gold Mines in 1952.

He established Ilam in 1954 as an independent research centre, archive, and library intended to expand upon the work of the African Music Society, which he had founded eight years previously after receiving funding from the Nuffield Foundation.

After Tracey died in 1977, his son Andrew became the director of Ilam.

He moved the library to Rhodes University in 1978, where it was affiliated with the Institute of Social and Economic Research until 2005 when it was officially attached to the Rhodes University music and musicology department.

"The overseas company which supported the library refused to continue with sponsorship because of apartheid at the time. Ilam was an independent library, so I had to find other ways of keeping it alive," Andrew said.

He tried numerous tertiary institutions in South Africa. When Rhodes University came on board in 1978, he moved the library to Grahamstown.

Now retired, Tracey still helps out at the library from time to time. He has spent more than 20 years learning about African music and instruments from different countries.

"My approach was different from my father's. He did most of the recording. I spent time with the musicians to learn more about the music and to play the different instruments," he said.

He is excited about project of digitising some of his father's work.

"This means that some of the songs recorded years ago will last longer and be available to everyone," he said.

Ilam director Professor Diane Thram said: "The library is a rare and internationally recognised archive of the musical heritage of sub-Saharan Africa, consisting primarily of the large collection of recordings of African music made by Hugh Tracey.

"People can buy CDs from Tracey's Music of Africa Series for R115.

"Photographs are sold through Ilam's e-commerce website hosted by Africa Media Online.

"We train Rhodes ethnomusicology students in research methods and our clients include musicians, researchers, and anyone with an interest in African music from across the globe.

"With our musical holdings being digitised, it is easier for our clients to go online and order our products. Our clients include musicians who want inspiration and ideas.

"But if they want Ilam's recordings, they must first get copyright clearance."

Thram, who lectured in ethnomusicology at Rhodes University from 1999, joined Ilam as the director in 2006 when Andrew Tracey retired.

The library received two major grants last year, including R904 000 from Rand Merchant Bank‘s Expressions Fund to support the cost of a two-year project of cataloguing and digitising Tracey's collection.

Work on this project started in February last year and is expected to be completed in November.

An outreach component of this project is the creation of a museum exhibit featuring Tracey's legacy for African music and the library‘s current work.

The exhibit is to be mounted in Wits University's Origins Centre. It will also travel to other parts of the world.

The US-based Andrew W Mellon Foundation last year gave the library $250 000 (R33-million) to fund a three-year project that will see Ilam print holdings (manuscripts, photographs, letters), properly catalogued and preserved according to international archival and library standards.

"Both projects are staffed by a fully qualified sound engineer and a trained sound engineering assistant," Thram added.

"They carry out the cataloguing and digital conversion of the field recording.

"The digital sound files, along with the metadata, information about track captured for each item, will be transferred to the Ilam server where access from the Ilam online sound archive is possible."

A qualified librarian assisted by a cataloguing assistant is responsible for processing the print holdings.

The catalogue of Ilam's books and print holdings is stored on the Cory Library Millennium Server, which affords online access through a link from the Ilam website to the Rhodes University website's online library database.

Ilam now employs 11 people and the aim is to complete digitisation of the archive's sound recordings, films, and sizable photograph and print collections by 2011.

Through its cataloguing and digitising project, the Ilam archive is making its holdings accessible to the world.

Source: The Herald

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