Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Hey folks,
My name is Ronan Mc Connell and I am currently studying an MA in Museum Studies at Bournemouth Univeristy in the UK. I play ITM reguarly, mainly mandolin and guitar.
I researching for my thesis entitled 'Traditional Music: is it a viable resource for museums to collect in order to promote local cultural heritage?'
Basically my work revolves around the idea that traditional music (either ITM or other) can be used by museums to promote cultural heritage in the forms of collecting, perservation, exhibition, sound archive, workshops. study (e.g. regional variations) etc... What I am trying to ascertain is whether or not this idea is currently plausible.
I have been in contact with many museums about this topic but what I would also love to know is what you; the players and listeners of ITM feel about the subject.
I have designed a short survey that takes two mins max to fill out and I would be really grateful for any responses. If anyone would like to continue the discussion in this thread also it would be much appreciated!
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Thanks for the reply! The ITMA is a great place! I visited them there last week and they were really helpful.
The problem is that they operate with limited staff numbers on a national level and while the work they are doing is wonderful and very important, what I am trying to find out is could local museums also contrtibute to collecting on a regional level, particuarly in countries outside of Ireland (e.g. UK, U.S.A. etc.)?
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Ronan, I took your survey, but I got the 2nd page repeated. Not sure if I answered the full survey
One thing about the way the questions were put, though.
I live in Appalachia, or the mountains of Pennsylvania. this region which extends into West Virginia and eastern Kentucky has a destinctive folk music tradition, but it is not ITM
so I play a folk style that has not much to do with the folks around here!
i just thought that was a funny twist that you might want to know about
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
YOu may be familiar with them, but also have a look at the sites below for similar ideas, made available to a wider audience through permanent online archives.
(I'm doing a cross-disciplinary Museum Studies certification as part of my Information Studies MS next year at Florida State University in the US... so Bournemouth in the UK has a separate MA for Museum Studies? Good to know )
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
@ Nate Ryan
Im delighted you took part in the survey even though the traditional music in your region is not ITM! The most important factor is whether or not local museums should be collecting traditional music in their area, regardless of what traditonal music is.
@Llig Leachim
Thanks for your reply. Although I think you may be right about museums in general 30 years ago but certainly not today. Modern museums when run properly are cultural institutions that actively collect material that promotes cultural heritage in a positive and inclusive manner for all members of the community. This includes contemporary collecting.
You might for example look at the Horniman Museum in London, which holds a huge instrument collection and actively promotes the playing of many of their instruments by the general public, as well as researching and displaying exhibitions that promote musical traditions worldwide.
Other museums like the Northumberland Bagpipe Museum, or St. Fagans in Wales actively collect local music that is regionally significant, and in doing so promote and preserve that tradition.
The old meaning of 'museum' as we know it is a dying relic of antiquarianist age. Some museums still have not grasped this, but the new generation of museum practice is attempting to create vibrant and active cultural centres for everyone to enjoy. More and more museums today act as archives and libraries just as much as they display objects from the past.
Get involved in your local museum and see for yourself!
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
I'm with Ronan on his descriptions, by and large and on the whole.
There are, of course, notable exceptions.
I forget which one of the Whaling museums in the NE of the Us had an original whaleboat, from the 1900s', mounted outside the museum. When after many years, it had deteriorated considerably, the curator had it burnt !
I was also very recently in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This has an enormous quantity of material in storage, at a warehouse that can only be visited on special occasions. Meanwhile the museum has acres of empty space within its walls, plus some new displays I can only describe as a triumph of design over content. Some of the child-friendly exhibits I find exasperating in their level of education. But then, I'm an old fart.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
And another thing........
...the museum in Norwich, like most museums, has a shop. Visiting there, a year or more ago, my wife asked why they were not stocking the Peter Bellamy opus "The Transports", concerning a famous piece of local history, when a couple who had met in the town gaol were denied the right to take the child they had produced to Australia with them when they were finally being deported. The answer given was "Oh, that folkie stuff, that's all so '70s' !"
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Thats shocking, although I know museums like that are becoming few and far between thankfully!
Bringing it back to music, there have been some great exhibitions in museums recently, including the Northern Fiddler exhibition, which was initiated in part by the ITMA, and is still running today!
There was another one in Derry a few years ago entitled 'they love music mightily' and it profiled traditional musicians from around Ireland as well as providing sound and video accompaniment. More of this would be great!
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
"More and more museums today act as archives and libraries just as much as they display objects from the past."
I'm a bit confused ... is not the definition of an archive and library to do with collecting and displaying objects from the past?
My dictionary has Museum as:
"a building or place where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are kept and displayed."
hmmm, things of permanent value? The very soul of the music I play has its essence in transient value. You play it, and it's gone.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Isn't there some scientific principle that says with tiny objects you can measure their position and size but not at the same time. Because doing one affects the other. Trying to put Traditional Music into a museum is a bit like that. No sooner have you measured and defined it, it has changed. Doesn't belong in a Museum IMHO. There are enough Archives with recordings to do all that can be done.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Your thesis sounds interesting and I did the survey. I'm not sure about the 'promote local cultural heritage' bit. I'd say the use of media like TV, radio and the Web would be the most effective way of 'promoting' traditional music as played locally.
To me museums are more about preservation and education. But I'm an old fart as well, so I'd rather see a real fossil than an animatronic T-Rex.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
The noises people make - music, song, stories, accounts, dialects, accents, machinery, etc - are as much cultural artefacts as the things they make and use, in many cases more significant. The museum would have no difficulty about acquiring the fiddle of the famous local fiddle player, manuscripts or a photograph, so why not the fiddling? Which is the more important?
In the past, collecting and preserving audio was difficult and expensive, but less so these days. If the collected sound is likely to have national significance, it would be appropriate for the museum to offer it also to the relevant national collecting institution, which also might assist with preservation. Good thing about sound in these digital days is the copy can be the same as the original.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Hey again folks,
I just want to say ive gotten some wonderful responses from the survey so far and some very insightful comments too so thanks very much to everyone so far!
Just wanted to discuss a few interesting points:
@Llig Leachim
The term 'objects' when relating to the museum primarily refer to physical artefacts as opposed to literature or media. The point I was making is that the records that are kept with these objects as well the extra research amount to a situation that has much in common with archives and libraries.
I appreciate what you said about the value the music has to you when you play it, and it really comes across that you have a deep understanding and respect for the music you play.
I would never suggest a framework for museums that would in any way damage or take away from the tradition. But in terms of the term 'permanent value', yes, I feel that traditional music is of permanent value to cultural heritage, just as much as literature and architecture etc.., and to keep a physical and fully accessible, interactive record of its roots and how it is developing to inform members of the community and visitors who aren't well informed is equally important, partiualry when opportunities to hear the music live locally are quite scarce. I also feel that to create an additional resource for players in the form of a sound archive of local music that national archives cannot provide would be of a wonderful asset to the preservation of local heritage.
@Terry McGee
Thanks for your reply. Most of the responses I have got in a similar survey to museums have stressed the close relationship museums now have with archives, particualry in the area of oral history recording, its quite possible the same links could be strenghened in terms of music.
Many local museums already have instruments related to the local folk tradition, its only logical that the next step is to collect the music to accompany them. Its like collecting a photograph of an event in the past, and then creating an oral history recording of someone who was witnessed that event and described it. Both go hand in hand, the significance of one is lessened without the other.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Donough, you're thinking of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
it applies in quuantum physics where measurement itself disturbs the original state. It means that for determining the vector of certain particles, you have to use statistics to speak in aggregae possibilities. Dick Feyneman's notion of the sum of histories brought about some of the mathmatical tools
sort of a long way to go to get to the idea that we can't know everything, but you know how scientists can be
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
The Brussels musical instruments museum has a HUGE collection of traditional instruments - though only a small part of it is on display. They also have their own restoration workshops.
If you're looking for the music itself, the Folk museum in Gooik (Belgium - near Brussels) has the most important collection of tunes of the Low Countries. The collection is made of scores, recordings, instruments, pictures etc. A large part of them have been collected with a tape recorder, pen and paper, recording and transcribing songs and dances played by elderly people in the country side - much like Bartók did in his days.
Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Hey folks,
My name is Ronan Mc Connell and I am currently studying an MA in Museum Studies at Bournemouth Univeristy in the UK. I play ITM reguarly, mainly mandolin and guitar.
I researching for my thesis entitled 'Traditional Music: is it a viable resource for museums to collect in order to promote local cultural heritage?'
Basically my work revolves around the idea that traditional music (either ITM or other) can be used by museums to promote cultural heritage in the forms of collecting, perservation, exhibition, sound archive, workshops. study (e.g. regional variations) etc... What I am trying to ascertain is whether or not this idea is currently plausible.
I have been in contact with many museums about this topic but what I would also love to know is what you; the players and listeners of ITM feel about the subject.
I have designed a short survey that takes two mins max to fill out and I would be really grateful for any responses. If anyone would like to continue the discussion in this thread also it would be much appreciated!
Here is the link to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1_2fCemHoRf5fTRSPKvFbfgg_3d_3d
With thanks,
Ronan
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
itma.ie
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Thanks for the reply! The ITMA is a great place! I visited them there last week and they were really helpful.
The problem is that they operate with limited staff numbers on a national level and while the work they are doing is wonderful and very important, what I am trying to find out is could local museums also contrtibute to collecting on a regional level, particuarly in countries outside of Ireland (e.g. UK, U.S.A. etc.)?
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Ronan, I took your survey, but I got the 2nd page repeated. Not sure if I answered the full survey
One thing about the way the questions were put, though.
I live in Appalachia, or the mountains of Pennsylvania. this region which extends into West Virginia and eastern Kentucky has a destinctive folk music tradition, but it is not ITM
so I play a folk style that has not much to do with the folks around here!
i just thought that was a funny twist that you might want to know about
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
YOu may be familiar with them, but also have a look at the sites below for similar ideas, made available to a wider audience through permanent online archives.
)
http://www.asaplive.com/FARNE/Home.cfm
http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/
(I'm doing a cross-disciplinary Museum Studies certification as part of my Information Studies MS next year at Florida State University in the US... so Bournemouth in the UK has a separate MA for Museum Studies? Good to know
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by gravelwalks
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
I'm glad I didn't get the music I play from a museum. And I'm glad I don't play it in a museum.
I appreciate that you most likely mean well. But you maybe missing an important, if not intended, feature of museums ... they contain dead things.
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by ...
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
I'm with Micahel
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
or should I say, Michael
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
@ Nate Ryan
Im delighted you took part in the survey even though the traditional music in your region is not ITM! The most important factor is whether or not local museums should be collecting traditional music in their area, regardless of what traditonal music is.
@Llig Leachim
Thanks for your reply. Although I think you may be right about museums in general 30 years ago but certainly not today. Modern museums when run properly are cultural institutions that actively collect material that promotes cultural heritage in a positive and inclusive manner for all members of the community. This includes contemporary collecting.
You might for example look at the Horniman Museum in London, which holds a huge instrument collection and actively promotes the playing of many of their instruments by the general public, as well as researching and displaying exhibitions that promote musical traditions worldwide.
Other museums like the Northumberland Bagpipe Museum, or St. Fagans in Wales actively collect local music that is regionally significant, and in doing so promote and preserve that tradition.
The old meaning of 'museum' as we know it is a dying relic of antiquarianist age. Some museums still have not grasped this, but the new generation of museum practice is attempting to create vibrant and active cultural centres for everyone to enjoy. More and more museums today act as archives and libraries just as much as they display objects from the past.
Get involved in your local museum and see for yourself!
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
@gravelwalks
Thank you, these are great links!
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
I'm with Ronan on his descriptions, by and large and on the whole.
There are, of course, notable exceptions.
I forget which one of the Whaling museums in the NE of the Us had an original whaleboat, from the 1900s', mounted outside the museum. When after many years, it had deteriorated considerably, the curator had it burnt !
I was also very recently in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This has an enormous quantity of material in storage, at a warehouse that can only be visited on special occasions. Meanwhile the museum has acres of empty space within its walls, plus some new displays I can only describe as a triumph of design over content. Some of the child-friendly exhibits I find exasperating in their level of education. But then, I'm an old fart.
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
And another thing........
...the museum in Norwich, like most museums, has a shop. Visiting there, a year or more ago, my wife asked why they were not stocking the Peter Bellamy opus "The Transports", concerning a famous piece of local history, when a couple who had met in the town gaol were denied the right to take the child they had produced to Australia with them when they were finally being deported. The answer given was "Oh, that folkie stuff, that's all so '70s' !"
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Thats shocking, although I know museums like that are becoming few and far between thankfully!
Bringing it back to music, there have been some great exhibitions in museums recently, including the Northern Fiddler exhibition, which was initiated in part by the ITMA, and is still running today!
There was another one in Derry a few years ago entitled 'they love music mightily' and it profiled traditional musicians from around Ireland as well as providing sound and video accompaniment. More of this would be great!
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
"More and more museums today act as archives and libraries just as much as they display objects from the past."
I'm a bit confused ... is not the definition of an archive and library to do with collecting and displaying objects from the past?
My dictionary has Museum as:
"a building or place where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are kept and displayed."
hmmm, things of permanent value? The very soul of the music I play has its essence in transient value. You play it, and it's gone.
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by ...
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Yes, llig, you're purely a transient.........you, too, shall pass.
# Posted on June 10th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Isn't there some scientific principle that says with tiny objects you can measure their position and size but not at the same time. Because doing one affects the other. Trying to put Traditional Music into a museum is a bit like that. No sooner have you measured and defined it, it has changed. Doesn't belong in a Museum IMHO. There are enough Archives with recordings to do all that can be done.
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by Donough
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
"Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, then is heard no more"
(from Macbeth if my memory serves me well)
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by domhnall.
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Your thesis sounds interesting and I did the survey. I'm not sure about the 'promote local cultural heritage' bit. I'd say the use of media like TV, radio and the Web would be the most effective way of 'promoting' traditional music as played locally.
To me museums are more about preservation and education. But I'm an old fart as well, so I'd rather see a real fossil than an animatronic T-Rex.
Good luck with the thesis.
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by d0tter
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
The noises people make - music, song, stories, accounts, dialects, accents, machinery, etc - are as much cultural artefacts as the things they make and use, in many cases more significant. The museum would have no difficulty about acquiring the fiddle of the famous local fiddle player, manuscripts or a photograph, so why not the fiddling? Which is the more important?
In the past, collecting and preserving audio was difficult and expensive, but less so these days. If the collected sound is likely to have national significance, it would be appropriate for the museum to offer it also to the relevant national collecting institution, which also might assist with preservation. Good thing about sound in these digital days is the copy can be the same as the original.
Terry
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by Terry McGee
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
My program is Information Science, not 'Studies.' Oh, for an edit feature...
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by gravelwalks
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Hey again folks,
I just want to say ive gotten some wonderful responses from the survey so far and some very insightful comments too so thanks very much to everyone so far!
Just wanted to discuss a few interesting points:
@Llig Leachim
The term 'objects' when relating to the museum primarily refer to physical artefacts as opposed to literature or media. The point I was making is that the records that are kept with these objects as well the extra research amount to a situation that has much in common with archives and libraries.
I appreciate what you said about the value the music has to you when you play it, and it really comes across that you have a deep understanding and respect for the music you play.
I would never suggest a framework for museums that would in any way damage or take away from the tradition. But in terms of the term 'permanent value', yes, I feel that traditional music is of permanent value to cultural heritage, just as much as literature and architecture etc.., and to keep a physical and fully accessible, interactive record of its roots and how it is developing to inform members of the community and visitors who aren't well informed is equally important, partiualry when opportunities to hear the music live locally are quite scarce. I also feel that to create an additional resource for players in the form of a sound archive of local music that national archives cannot provide would be of a wonderful asset to the preservation of local heritage.
@Terry McGee
Thanks for your reply. Most of the responses I have got in a similar survey to museums have stressed the close relationship museums now have with archives, particualry in the area of oral history recording, its quite possible the same links could be strenghened in terms of music.
Many local museums already have instruments related to the local folk tradition, its only logical that the next step is to collect the music to accompany them. Its like collecting a photograph of an event in the past, and then creating an oral history recording of someone who was witnessed that event and described it. Both go hand in hand, the significance of one is lessened without the other.
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by Beanstalk
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
Donough, you're thinking of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
it applies in quuantum physics where measurement itself disturbs the original state. It means that for determining the vector of certain particles, you have to use statistics to speak in aggregae possibilities. Dick Feyneman's notion of the sum of histories brought about some of the mathmatical tools
sort of a long way to go to get to the idea that we can't know everything, but you know how scientists can be
# Posted on June 11th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Traditional music collecting: plausible for museums?
The Brussels musical instruments museum has a HUGE collection of traditional instruments - though only a small part of it is on display. They also have their own restoration workshops.
If you're looking for the music itself, the Folk museum in Gooik (Belgium - near Brussels) has the most important collection of tunes of the Low Countries. The collection is made of scores, recordings, instruments, pictures etc. A large part of them have been collected with a tape recorder, pen and paper, recording and transcribing songs and dances played by elderly people in the country side - much like Bartók did in his days.
# Posted on June 17th 2009 by fluffy82