History of fieldwork recording technology: Difference between revisions

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* Field notes result from a kind of “mental recording”, which is transferred to words, symbols, sketches, diagrams, and musical notations on paper as quickly as is practical.  
= Recording technology =
** This "low tech" solution remains central to ethnographic fieldwork, not only because it is inexpensive, but also due to its flexibility and its automatic incorporation of the fieldworker's own interpretive competence, intelligent information reduction. For example, in transcribing an interview or melody we think about what's really important.
What is recording technology?  In recording we transform (transduce) physical waves (sound and light) emanating from the field then preserve them in physical media for longer-term storage.  The past becomes imprinted on the future.  Ironically it may be the low tech (Sumerian clay tablets, LPs) which last longer (than floppy discs, or CDs...)
** Thus the irony: less information is often more information.
 
The ''scientific'' study of culture was completely transformed by the advent of recording technology, particular for "culture" that is evanescent, immaterial, intangible - such as performance in all its flavors, including ritual, speech, and music.
* Such technology centers on representing two sensory fields:  hearing, and vision, as they are carried by waves (sound and light). Other senses are harder to capture.
* The “scientific” study of music was advanced by technology enabling recorded sound and image, turning the intangible and evanescent into the tangible and durable, stopping time, enabling careful study, and encouraging ''collection'' and ''comparison''
* Technology turns music into an ''object'' - for better or for worse.
 
= Early audio recording and ethnomusicology =
* One of the key events was Thomas Edison’s development of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph phonograph] in 1877 (recorded and played back from cylinders) followed by Emile Berliner’s invention of the gramophone in 1887, leading to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company Victor gramophone].
* But there were even earlier devices, e.g. Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s record-only phonautograph invented in 1857 (http://www.firstsounds.org/).
* Introduction of these technologies triggered the advent of the sound archive (starting with the [https://www.ethnomusicology.org/page/HS_InsBerlin/Institutional-Histories-Entry-The-Berlin-Phonogramm-Archiv.htm Berlin Phonogramm Archiv][https://soundandscience.de/location/phonogramm-archiv-berlin]), transformed the study of music and essentially gave rise to ethnomusicology (then "comparative musicology")
* Recordings were first made using wax cylinder recorders, portable and usable infield or outfield. One of the most famous images of such recording is this one: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_and_reproduction#/media/File:Frances_Densmore_recording_Mountain_Chief2.jpg Frances Densmore recording Blackfoot songs from Mountain Chief] at the [https://music.si.edu/video/photo-frances-densmore-mountain-chief Smithsonian]
* Later shellac discs were used, and then vinyl.
* Besides their use for fieldwork, these technologies also enabled a new music industry, leading to the rise of popular music disseminated much more broadly than before, and generating new forms of ethnomusicology to study it!
 
 
''[http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm Check out some of the retro technologies in this remarkable online museum!]''


* Nevertheless, the ''scientific' study of culture was completely transformed by the advent of recording technology, particular for "culture" that is evanescent, immaterial, intangible - such as performance in all its flavors, including music.
= Image and film recording =
* Such technology initially centered on two sensory fields:  hearing, and vision.
* The “scientific” study of music was advanced by technology enabling recorded sound and image, by turning the intangible into the tangible, enabling careful study and encouraging comparison through such representations that could be juxtaposed, and were seen to form a "collection".
* Similarly mechanical recordings of sound and image advanced the study of culture generally in related fields.
* One of the founding events of ethnomusicology was Edison’s development of the phonograph in 1877 (recorded and played back from cylinders) followed by Emile Berliner’s invention of the gramophone in 1887, with an antecedent in Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s record-only phonautograph invented in 1857 (http://www.firstsounds.org/). 
* Still image technology was developed in the 1820s and 1830s, first by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce Nicéphore Niépce], who developed the earliest photographic process, the [http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/firstphotograph/#top/heliography.html heliograph], and  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Daguerre Louis Daguerre]  who developed the [http://www.daguerreotypearchive.org/ daguerreotype]
* Still image technology was developed in the 1820s and 1830s, first by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce Nicéphore Niépce], who developed the earliest photographic process, the [http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/firstphotograph/#top/heliography.html heliograph], and  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Daguerre Louis Daguerre]  who developed the [http://www.daguerreotypearchive.org/ daguerreotype]
* Nascent motion picture technology emerged in France with the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re Lumiere brothers], whose [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGNct1h_RfQ first film] was screened in 1895.
* Nascent motion picture technology emerged in France with the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re Lumiere brothers], whose [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk first film] was screened in 1895.
* (NB: All of this technology resulted from an era of European scientific advancement, itself predicated not only on the Enlightenment, but on an era of global travel and discovery, and the resources subsequently made available from global imperialism and colonialism (especially free labor from the despicable slave trade), factors that ironically also gave rise to new directions in social science, including anthropology and ethnomusicology.)
* Even [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4deGQ_CPWw earlier experiments included these shorts]
 
= Enlightenment, Science, Technology, and Colonialism =
 
''NB: All of this technology resulted from an era of European scientific advancement, itself built not only on the Enlightenment, but on technologies of travel and warfare, "discovery," conquest, missionizing, control, expropriation of resources, and the resources made available from such global imperialism and colonialism (especially free labor from the despicable slave trade), factors that ironically also gave rise to new directions in social science, including anthropology--initially serving colonialism--and ethnomusicology, which would later make extensive use of it.''


What is recording technology?  In recording we transform (transduce) physical waves (sound and light) emanating from the field then preserve them in physical media for longer-term storage.  The past becomes imprinted on the future.  Ironically it may be the low tech (Sumerian clay tablets, LPs) which last longer (than floppy discs, or CDs...)
= Recording technology: directions =


Over time recording technology has rapidly developed in three often converging directions:
Over time recording technology has rapidly developed in three often converging directions:

Latest revision as of 19:16, 29 April 2022

Recording technology

What is recording technology? In recording we transform (transduce) physical waves (sound and light) emanating from the field then preserve them in physical media for longer-term storage. The past becomes imprinted on the future. Ironically it may be the low tech (Sumerian clay tablets, LPs) which last longer (than floppy discs, or CDs...)

The scientific study of culture was completely transformed by the advent of recording technology, particular for "culture" that is evanescent, immaterial, intangible - such as performance in all its flavors, including ritual, speech, and music.

  • Such technology centers on representing two sensory fields: hearing, and vision, as they are carried by waves (sound and light). Other senses are harder to capture.
  • The “scientific” study of music was advanced by technology enabling recorded sound and image, turning the intangible and evanescent into the tangible and durable, stopping time, enabling careful study, and encouraging collection and comparison
  • Technology turns music into an object - for better or for worse.

Early audio recording and ethnomusicology

  • One of the key events was Thomas Edison’s development of the phonograph in 1877 (recorded and played back from cylinders) followed by Emile Berliner’s invention of the gramophone in 1887, leading to the Victor gramophone.
  • But there were even earlier devices, e.g. Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s record-only phonautograph invented in 1857 (http://www.firstsounds.org/).
  • Introduction of these technologies triggered the advent of the sound archive (starting with the Berlin Phonogramm Archiv[1]), transformed the study of music and essentially gave rise to ethnomusicology (then "comparative musicology")
  • Recordings were first made using wax cylinder recorders, portable and usable infield or outfield. One of the most famous images of such recording is this one: Frances Densmore recording Blackfoot songs from Mountain Chief at the Smithsonian
  • Later shellac discs were used, and then vinyl.
  • Besides their use for fieldwork, these technologies also enabled a new music industry, leading to the rise of popular music disseminated much more broadly than before, and generating new forms of ethnomusicology to study it!


Check out some of the retro technologies in this remarkable online museum!

Image and film recording

Enlightenment, Science, Technology, and Colonialism

NB: All of this technology resulted from an era of European scientific advancement, itself built not only on the Enlightenment, but on technologies of travel and warfare, "discovery," conquest, missionizing, control, expropriation of resources, and the resources made available from such global imperialism and colonialism (especially free labor from the despicable slave trade), factors that ironically also gave rise to new directions in social science, including anthropology--initially serving colonialism--and ethnomusicology, which would later make extensive use of it.

Recording technology: directions

Over time recording technology has rapidly developed in three often converging directions:

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