I just read this intriguing story on a CA university's efforts to preserve its small archive of Edison wax cylinder recordings made in the early 20th century of the last members of certain native American cultures...
http://www.slate.com/articles/video/vid ... dings.html
... thought some here might be interested.
story on preserving native american wax cylinder recordings
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- Victor V
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- Victor IV
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Re: story on preserving native american wax cylinder recordi
It is very interesting! The technique of utilizing laser to read cylinders and other ancient media is not new, there is at least one development done in Switzerland, that very effectively reads not only cylinders but worn out and even cracked records, including transcriptions. The cylinders in the video look in quite good shape, although the recordings are very primitive. It is a form of aural archeology.
On a similar theme, the Germans recorded (in 78 records) hundreds of English prisoners voices during WWI, all reading the same texts, with the purpose of capturing the diverse local accents. These records survived both wars in an archive in Berlin, and have been made available for consultation. The BBC made a very nice program about it, even finding surviving relatives of the people whose voices were recorded, and playing the records for them.
On a similar theme, the Germans recorded (in 78 records) hundreds of English prisoners voices during WWI, all reading the same texts, with the purpose of capturing the diverse local accents. These records survived both wars in an archive in Berlin, and have been made available for consultation. The BBC made a very nice program about it, even finding surviving relatives of the people whose voices were recorded, and playing the records for them.
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- Victor V
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- Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:35 pm
- Personal Text: on instagram as "oncedeadsound"
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Re: story on preserving native american wax cylinder recordi
I hadn't heard of that... are those by any chance available online?CarlosV wrote:On a similar theme, the Germans recorded (in 78 records) hundreds of English prisoners voices during WWI, all reading the same texts, with the purpose of capturing the diverse local accents. These records survived both wars in an archive in Berlin, and have been made available for consultation. The BBC made a very nice program about it, even finding surviving relatives of the people whose voices were recorded, and playing the records for them.
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- Victor VI
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Re: story on preserving native american wax cylinder recordi
Links here:brianu wrote:I hadn't heard of that... are those by any chance available online?CarlosV wrote:On a similar theme, the Germans recorded (in 78 records) hundreds of English prisoners voices during WWI, all reading the same texts, with the purpose of capturing the diverse local accents. These records survived both wars in an archive in Berlin, and have been made available for consultation. The BBC made a very nice program about it, even finding surviving relatives of the people whose voices were recorded, and playing the records for them.
http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... &hilit=pow