Contents
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Conservation
Old Technologies Meet New: Current Work at Colonial Williamsburg
John R. Watson
Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, VA, U.S.A.
At Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, several new methods are in use for
the technical documentation and conservation of old instruments. New
technologies are being used to uncover the technologies used by
historical instrument makers. Computer Assisted Design software in
combination with a low-cost apparatus developed by the author generates
quick and accurate technical drawings. Digital images are being used
for virtual restoration and enhancement of historical evidence. A
variety of sometimes high-tech and generally low-cost methods are being
used for deriving from tool marks and other surface evidence a large
amount of information relevant to our re-discovery of historical craft
traditions. Digital images of number stampings in keyboard instruments
are stored in a database, providing compelling evidence of original
makers. This method leads to the workshop of origin even when the
formal inscription is missing, or lists only a retailers name. The
paper also introduces a new musical instrument conservation laboratory,
part of the DeWitt Wallace Collections and Conservation facility at
Colonial Williamsburg, completed at the beginning of 1997. Here,
instruments are studied and conserved in a context of eight other
specialist labs, an X-ray room, and three photo studios, all
contributing state of the art documentation and analytical capabilities.
Digital Archiving and Restoration of Reproducing Piano Rolls
Zoltán Jánosy [1] and János Mácsai [2]
- Appaloosa On-Line Ltd, Budapest, Hungary
-
Museum of the History of Music, Institute of Musicology of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Reproducing piano recordings are interesting historical relics from both
a musical and a technical point of view. While there is a heated debate
about the authenticity of such material nonetheless they should be
regarded as valuable documents of the turn of our century, of the
"Golden Era of the Piano".
The Museum of the History of
Music in Budapest, Hungary, owns a rather large collection of player
piano rolls consisting of about 2000 rolls. Most of the rolls were made
for the German Welte-Mignon reproducing system. This system had an
advanced dynamics encoding scheme, making the recordings sound very
realistic. Some of the early Welte rolls are especially interesting,
since famous composers or pianist can be heard playing on them.
Unfortunately the Museum doesn't have a functioning player. Besides
that, there are several damaged rolls which no more can be played on a
mechanical player. Moreover, since most rolls were manufactured during
the 1910s, their material is slowly deteriorating.
For these
reasons we have started a project to salvage these treasures. Instead
of trying to conserve the paper material of the rolls themselves, we
decided to extract the information contained on them and store it
electronically. The rolls were scanned with a high-resolution
drum-scanner and the images were transferred to a computer. For
archiving purposes the images were stored on CD-R disks. (Although the
lifespan of such media may be even shorter, than of the original paper
material, their advantage is that the information recorded on them can
be replicated without loss or damage, practically unlimited times.) We
have also developed an algorithm that analyzes the images, simulates the
mechanical player and plays the songs using either a synthesizer or a
computer-controlled piano (such as the Yamaha Disklavier). For
enhancing the performance the data can be further analyzed to reveal and
correct possible defects of the recording and/or duplicating devices.
We are currently building our own computerized piano player based on
PianoDisc parts. This device will be used for making audio recording of
the material, and eventually to display publicly the material of the
rolls at the Museum.
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Exhibitions and Virtual Tours
Light and Sound in Exhibitions
Darja Koter
Musical Instrument Collection, Landscape Museum, Ptuj, Slovenia
It is quite common for the majority of musem exhibits to show the
splendour of the shapes though which each of them narrates its story of
useful and aesthetic value. This is also the case with archaic
instruments which carry all the distinction of other exhibits,
nevertheless they display the whole value only when they produce the
sound. For many reasons the instruments are often exhibited as a part
of furniture or as useful objects coming from different societies. Even
more lifeless they appear when safely kept in a display cabinet which
can provide a safe shelter, and where they are surrounded by dead
silence or just by soft music in the background.
The presentation
deals with the use of electronic technique in the musical instrument
collection in The Landscape Museum in Ptuj. The collection which
includes about 300 exhibits, has been exhibited in the museum for a
century. Until recently the exhibits were just silent witnesses of the
past. owever, they became alive two years ago with the help of
electronic technique, i.e. with luminous and sound effects. The
exhibition tries to follow the latest findings in the field of museums
which strive for a live museum being able to communicate with the
audience. To return the instruments into life at least indirectly, we
chose the electronic technique, i.e. short recordings of old
instruments on CDs combined in a mosaic pattern, and luminous effects
which lead the visitor through the exhibition without words, only with
the help of sensors. Individual parts are moving together with the
light from one instrument to another thus giving not only the
information about different types of instruments, producers and age but
also different sounds. Notices and captions of exhibits have remained
as the explanatory material, and there is still the catalogue with more
complex data available for more demanding visitors. To achieve the
optimum dynamics the luminous effects are used which control the
movement through the exhibition.
We left out the computerised
recognition of the world of instruments deliberately as we wanted to
focus more on the original exhibit, its sound, shape and practical use.
Our experiences so far have shown that the exhibition is more
interesting, exhaustive and educative, suggestive and also emotional for
the visitors.
A Prototype CD-ROM "Virtual Tour" of Keyboard Instruments
in the Royal College of Music Museum, London
Elizabeth Wells
Museum of Instruments, Royal College of Music, London, UK
After meetings between the College and the Worshipful Company of
Information Technologists, the Royal College of Music Museum is
currently producing a prototype CD-ROM in conjunction with Jill
Mortimer, a multi-media student of Plymouth University and Jenny Nex, a
music graduate of Edinburgh University. We are grateful to the
Worshipful Company of Information Technologists for funding support for
the project. The aim is to provide a "virtual tour" of some
of the keyboard instruments and to discover ways in which electronic
tecnhology can illuminate and inform in ways not previously possible.
It is hoped to include spectral analysis of clavichord sounds at
different pitches and volumes, quick-time VR or video of keyboard
actions from drawings and a model, as well as photographs, graphics,
sound and an inter-active glossary. The work so far completed will be
shown and the processes discussed.
Virtual Banjo: a Multimedia History of the Banjo for Presentation as
a Touch Screen Kiosk Exhibition
Scott Odell and Gary Sturm
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A
This presentation will include excerpts from a prototype demo programmed
in Macromedia Director, running on a PowerMac 8100 and will discuss
schedule, budget, format conversion, programming, and other
considerations which affected the development of an exhibit in a
non-traditional computerized format.
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Presenting New Instruments and New Ways of Teaching
Combining Exhibits, Public Programs, and the Internet to teach
Guitar history
Jim Fricke
Experience Museum Project, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
The Experience Music Project, an interactive music and performing arts
museum scheduled to open in Seattle in 1999, mounted its first exhibit
this past summer: Strats, Studios & The Seattle Sound, presented
at the Tacoma Art Museum. One section of the larger exhibit,
"Tools of the Trade", highlighted milestones in the history of
the solid body electric guitar, exhibiting 11 guitars dating from 1932
to 1996.
An enhanced version of the exhibit was be presented in
December 1996 and January 1997 at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.
A number of changes will be made to the guitar portion of the exhibit,
based on the results of formal visitor research conducted at the
original exhibit. Changes include enhanced graphics and the addition of
sound samples of the various instruments.
A variety of ancillary
programs will support this "Tools of the Trade" exhibit:
gallery demonstrations; a curriculum unit with teacher training
workshops based on the guitar exhibit; a monograph including a related
essay; a World Wide Web site providing more in-depth information and
unique interactive features.
Each of these programs takes advantage
of existing and developing technologies, though some would be
categorized as "low-tech." Combined, the programs will enhance
the physical exhibit, and take the exhibit to a wider and more varied
audience.
This paper will present highlights from the exhibit and
public programs, demonstrate the WWW and other technologies, and report
the results of new audience research conducted at the Pacific Science
Center.
Quel avenir pour les collections d'instruments
électroacoustiques et électroniques dans les musées ?
Problèmes de méthode et de conservation
(The Future for Electronic Instruments in Museums)
Marie-France Calas
Musée de la Musique, Paris, France
Si le XXème siècle qui s'achève a vu le
développement continué d'instruments nés au XIX
ème, il a aussi produit des instruments de type nouveau,
prototypes ou non, lis notamment l'utilisation de
l'&eactue;lectriciteacute;. La création de l'audion de Lee de
Forest (1907) marque une date importante dans ce domaine.
L'apparition partir des années 60 des synthtiseurs, d'abord
analogiques ensuite numériques, puis la
généralisation du système MIDI en 1983 transforment
radicalement l'approche des instruments de musique. Désormais
leur conservation pose des problèmes de nature nouvelle:
normalisation, compatibilité entre supports, conservation
spécifique des processeurs informatiques.
Certains
préférent laisser ces collections aux musées des
techniques. Il appartient pourtant nos yeux aux musées
instrumentaux de poursuivre leur mission en collaborant avec des
professions nouvelles telles que informaticiens, physiciens et
spécialistes des télécommunications par exemple.
If the end of the 20th century has allowed us to witness the
continuing development of music instruments created in the 19th century,
it has also produced some instruments of a new type, some of them
prototypes, more particularly powered by electricity.
First, the
appearance of analog and then digital synthesizers in the sixties,
followed by the generalizing of the MIDI system in 1983 have
dramatically transformed the approach to music instruments. Henceforth
their preservation faces problems of a new nature: normalization,
compatibility between equipment, and specific care of computers'
processors.
Some people prefer to leave the care of these
collections to the technical museums. According to us, this new task is
part of the mission of music museums and should be fulfilled by
cooperating with different types of professionals, such as computer
engineers, physicists or specialists of telecommunications.
The Video Classroom: Teaching Music and Instruments to Georgia
Classrooms through the Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical
System
Joseph Johnson
Georgia Music Hall of Fame, Macon, Georgia, U.S.A.
The use of electronic technology by musical instrument collections and
music museums can play a larger role than merely serving as a cataloging
and retrieval tool or audio and video viewing mechanism. Ever
developing technology is presently allowing communications with peers at
other collections via the Internet and World Wide Web. Many collections
now proudly announce that they have a web page complete with download
(time & disk memory consuming) photographs - usually of poor image
quality - of their holdings. In the State of Georgia, a variety of
technologies are now working together to make collections accessible in
a meaningful way to not only researchers and the visiting public, but to
school classrooms as an integrated aspect of the core curriculum.
The State of Georgia has initiated, and systematically implemented, a
statewide education sustemm entitled "Georgia Statewide Academic
and Medical Systems" - GSAMS. GSAMS allows interactive, real time,
teaching capabilities via the integration of a number of technologies.
There are at present over 300 GSAMS sites around the state. Most sites
are located in elementary, secondary, college and university settings,
but this is expanding (by the end of 1997 there will be 391 academic and
61 medical sites!). The Georgia Music Hall of Fame (GMHF), the state's
new 42,900 sq. ft. music museum is developing educational programming
that will utilize its collections to teach cross disciplinary sessions
via GSAMS. Live educational programming can be broadcast to as many as
seven (7) other remote classroom sites at one time with real interaction
between teacher/facilitator and the students. This allows for
questions, instant review of material, and close-up examination of
artifacts used in the presentation. The GMHF is not limited to
programming within the state. Through a unit call the Gateway, GSAMS
can connect to other international standards video conferencing units
(including desktop video conferencing technologies), to satellite
technology, and interactive internet/world wide web sites. Thus,
interactive programming can reach such diverse audiences as an
elementary school in Georgia, a graduate class at Oxford University in
England, or even a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier at sea (which has
recently been done).
GSAMS is a technological tool that allows the
GMHF to safely share its collections and at the same time conduct
meaningful interactive educational programming. Such technology
provides a means for museums to care for their artifacts and yet allow a
larger audience "access" to those collections. The
educational possibilities are endless. This presentation is but one
approach to such educational opportunities.
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Assessing New Technologies
The Interpretation of the Music Instrument in the Electronic Age
Sumi Gunji
Japan
Progress in electronic engineering technology has brought considerable
change to our musical activity as well as the musical instruments
themselves. This paper will discuss the function of the musical
instrument as a medium of human communication and reconsider the ways of
interpreting the instrument in the museum.
For Better or for Worse: are New Technologies Helping our Curatorial
Role ?
Carmelle Bégin, Canada
The Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Canada
The adoption of digital signals to store and transmit all types of
information, sound, images, text or graphics is closely linked to the
development of electronic networks all over the world. This mix of
technologies may represent a better access to our collections but it
also has a direct effect on curatorial work related to the development
and use of collections. From a collecting mode where curators had
absolute freedom to determine the topic of their research, they had to
realign their activities in order to provide the clienteles of the
museum with a learning and enjoyable experience when they want to browse
through a page of the human heritage. We will examin the museum's
application of new technologies, its effect on our work as researcher
and curator of collections and the quality of information available on
the network.
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Documentation
Multimedia database of the musical instruments in Gakkigaku
Shiryôkan, Kunitachi College of Music
Kazue Nakamizo
Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo Japan
To understand a musical instrument, not only written documentation but
also audio-visual documentation such as photographs, drawings, sounds
and movies are very useful. The database of musical instruments which
involves these items is also considered to be a useful medium because it
can be used in various ways by means of the computer. This database was
first made for publishing the catalogue, The Collection of Musical
Instruments, in 1986, and included only the same text as in the
catalogue. In 1996 we again published the catalogue in a revised and
enlarged edition in two volumes on the basis of this database. Now we
are intending to make a multimedia database by adding photographs,
drawings, sounds, and/or movies to this text database. The project
started in Spring 1996 and is now ongoing. The latest information on
the following matters will be presented:
- Contents of the multimedia database
- Purpose of this project (possible ways of use)
- Working procedure of this project
- Database of Japanese musical instruments as a test version
- Equipment and software used for the test version.
Musical Instruments in New England: a Regional Database
Darcy Kuronen
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA, U.S.A.
During the past five years I have corresponded with museums and
historical societies in New England, encouraging them to send
information about musical instruments that they have in their
collections. In return I have sent them any information I can about
their instruments that clarifies nomenclature, dates, and use, along
with data about manufacturers. The information received was entered on
a database at the Museum of Fine Arts and has proved to be a valuable
research tool. Among the many instruments about which institutions sent
information, there were many that might be considered ordinary.
However, some very interesting woodwinds, brasses, strings, and
keyboards were also discovered, many of whose existence had escaped
inclusion in recently published surveys. A list of institutions that
might possess musical instruments was developed from the directory of
the American Association of Museums. Over 430 institutions were written
to and responses were received from over 130 as of September 1996.
Information was received about over 3000 instruments (not including the
large collections at the MFA and Yale University). The majority of the
instruments were of American manufacture, but there were also many
European instruments and some large collections of ethnographic
material. I will speak about the process I went through in obtaining
information and show how tools such as a computer database, word
processing, the fax machine, and even the photocopier have assisted in
the task. I will also show slides of some of the more interesting
pieces that were discovered.
Computer Modelling of Keyboard Instruments
Konstantin Restle
Musikinstrumenten Museum, Berlin, Germany
[Abstract not available]
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Musical Instruments and Music on the Web
Publishing on the Web: It's More than Just Interactive
Bill Yardley
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A
A discussion of the value of creating web sites that aspire to be more
than interactive playgrounds with a focus upon music, pop culture, and
copyright issues. (Yardley created and edits the Smithsonian web
publication "Increase & Diffusion" which includes coverage of some
of the musical events and exhibitions at the Smithsonian. He worked
with the musical instrument collections for several years.)
Musical Instruments of the Library of Congress on the Web
Carol Lynn Flanigan and Morgan V. Cundiff
Library of Congress, Washington D.C., U.S.A
The presentation will feature a demonstration of a prototype Web site
based on musical instrument collections in the Music Division of the
Library of Congress. The Web site is being developed as part of the
Library's National Digital Library Program.
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Details of the Meeting
Comments on this page to Arnold Myers, Vice-President CIMCIM, or to
Cynthia Adams Hoover, NMAH 4127, MRC 616/ Smithsonian Institution,
Washington D.C. 20560, USA. Cynthia Adams Hoover is the Program Chair
of the 1997 CIMCIM Conference.
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The page last updated: 8.5.97