The Digital Archive of North Indian Classical Music (ANICM) was set up at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, in early 2004, with funding under the Documentation of Rare Texts Programme instituted by the University Grants Commission (UGC). Over the last 15 years, the archive has grown substantially, and at present contains about 8000 hours of recorded music in digital form as well as a substantial corpus of music on loan, awaiting digitisation. The archive houses music recorded commercially as well as covers and private recordings more than a hundred years old. It is thus one of the largest repositories of Hindustani classical music in the country, especially rich in the genres of traditional music available across a large variety of carriers—from 78 rpm records to spool tapes.
On the occasion of International Museums Day, we will be conducting a guided tour of the Archive of North Indian Classical Music that will enable the participants to interact in an audio-visual presentation on the idea of archiving and the role that ANICM has taken to preserve the intangible history of our nation. The participants will then be led to a display and hands-on experience of various analogue carriers, such as 78 rpm shellac records, spool tapes, vinyl records, compact audio cassettes, as well as corresponding equipment such as acoustic gramophone, spool stereo tape recorder, professional turntable and tape deck. The tour will conclude with a live demonstration of the digitisation process.
Through this tour and hands-on digitisation activity in a working archive, we seek to highlight the importance of developing a repository of the intangible heritage of music, and look at the processes, carriers and kind of work that goes behind developing and continuously updating one.
This guided tour is free.
