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Archives sonores

Sound archives. Introduction

Christine Guillebaud
Traduction de Julia Mc Laren
Cet article est une traduction de :
Archives sonores. Introduction [fr]

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1Who are sound archives for? This question is at the heart of reflections by ethnomusicology collection managers around the world, whether working in museums, universities, research institutes, or independent sound archives.

  • 1 As a reminder: in parallel with this dissemination, a particularly prolific field of research on in (...)
  • 2 Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, formerly director of the Smithsoni (...)

2Ethnomusicologists have a long-standing interest in making sound archives available outside the academic sphere. It is a key part of the work of facilitating access to archival collections, historically linked to record publishing and radio broadcasting.1 From the 2000s onward, this effort was driven by major digitization programs, followed a decade later by the online availability of sound recordings. The ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger2 noted in 1986 that other audiences were likely to be interested in archive documents: “musicians, students, members of the public interested in a certain part of the world or learning a language, members of the society recorded, and refugees” (Seeger 1986, 264).

  • 3 Formerly curator at the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève and director of the Ateliers d’ethnomusicolo (...)

3More than two decades later, ethnomusicologist Laurent Aubert3 stressed the importance of taking a “clear-sighted” view of the use made of historical archives (Aubert 2009, 99), inviting us to invest in “a practical perspective: What is the point of archives that no one can consult? It is vital, for example, that archives be accessible to the peoples and communities whose music they preserve” (ibid., 99).

4At the same time, before the very existence of online databases, Anthony Seeger and Shubha Chaudhuri worked to decentralize and share professional knowledge on ethnomusicological archives. For the first time, in 1999, they brought together a network of experts near Delhi, India, for a series of meetings with the forward-looking title: “Preserving for the Millennium.” In the resulting book, Archives for the Future, they recall the unprecedented nature of this consortium:

  • 4 The institutions present were based in Austria, China, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, N (...)

Participants were selected largely from archives in industrializing countries—archives which were based in the area from where the materials were collected. This differentiates them from many archives in Western countries where often, though not always, the collections are from an area categorized as “the field” (Seeger and Chaudhuri 2004, x).4

5This series of meetings, focusing solely on ethnomusicological archives, brought about a paradigm shift between center and periphery, highlighting the uneven relationship in terms of conservation between countries that have been “collectors” and those in which music has been “collected.” Knowledge sharing was thus established.

6It has since been accepted that ethnomusicology audiovisual archives play a significant role in supporting and promoting musical traditions and, as such, have four missions: acquisition, organization, preservation, and dissemination (Seeger and Chaudhuri 2015, 22). They must also ensure that archives are considered by the various scientific and musical communities as “tools of self-determination” (ibid., 99).

7From the 2010s onward, the accessibility of archives via online databases has led to new research, notably in the field of computational ethnomusicology (Spielmann et al. 2017). Putting content online has also inherently accelerated the possibility of new forms of interaction and discussion with the communities from which archived sound heritages originate (Simonnot 2020, 20). With digitization, the stakes have also shifted from the preservation of physical storage media, which are fragile and subject to considerable deterioration, to that of sound content alone. The very nature of this music is now more clearly highlighted, and the way in which it is made accessible to the public benefits from greater historical and ethical insight. The “dissemination” of resources is never neutral.

8Actions and experiments involved in assigning new value to recordings are particularly complex due to their diversity. Sound archives collected during the colonial period, for example, were conditioned by the selection strategies of the people and institutions organizing their collection (Ajotikar and Van Straaten 2021). A sound document bears witness to power and protest dynamics arising from the various geographical and historical contexts through which it has passed, forming a record of sometimes traumatic histories. This composite set of meanings, stigmas, and values is the subject of current reflection by researchers, curators, and cultural actors, which goes beyond the simple search for “provenance.” In particular, the very context of the recording needs to be questioned, without assuming that it was always made with the musicians’ consent.

9Other sound archives may also be considered sensitive and difficult to “disseminate” due to their secret nature or because they are subject to explicit restrictions. Take, for example, the initiation chant by neophytes of the vodun Sakpata cult in Benin, recorded by Gilbert Rouget in 1969, who stated: “No broadcasting, copying, or use of any nature other than purely scientific and educational” (cited in Guillebaud and Leclair 2024, 267). The researcher’s responsibility is also fully engaged in the consent that must be obtained to make use of certain suyá songs from Brazil, which Anthony Seeger recorded in the 1970s and carefully prevented rival communities from listening to (Seeger 1986). Finally, there is the very status of sound recording, which is sometimes invested with a specific agentive dimension. This is the case of Yolngu musical practices in Arnhem Land (Australia) studied by anthropologist Jessica De Largy Healy, valorized locally “for purposes of transmission and cultural reproduction” and seen as an embodiment of the presence of “absent or deceased persons” (De Largy Healy 2016, 16). Aside from examples where the manipulation of sources is restricted, ethnomusicological archives are reused in a number of projects that transform the status and value of these documents. These include museography exhibitions, teaching aids, development programs, heritage projects, etc. Experiences are particularly varied; they have been developed in the now well-established field of “applied ethnomusicology” (Harrison et al. 2010; Pettan and Titon 2015; Aubert et al. 2016).

  • 5 Head of Collections for the “World and Traditional Music” department, then for “Sound & Vision” at (...)

10It is now accepted practice to include the original communities in the management of sound archives, to varying degrees depending on the case. They are sometimes invited to approve forms of cultural representation induced by dissemination and valorization projects. They then collaborate, assuming multiple identities depending on the institutions that interact with them. Whenever possible, this integration is a guarantee of a critical view of the collections and a source of documentary enrichment (Ginouvès 2004). It is also a means of learning more about the conceptions that give meaning to these music forms and developing “collections that resonate more closely with local experiences of musical creation and transmission” (Lobley 2014, 245). Finally, it enables a “decentralized” vision of the archive and its documentation. “We’re all Archivists Now,” write ethnomusicologists Carolyn Landau and Janet Topp Fargion (2012).5 The idea is to take archival documents out of institutions and reconnect them with cultural heritage communities in a new post-custodial model based notably on the principle of equity. In this process of reconnection, mediation can be provided by researchers, by other protagonists from the original communities and countries, or by personalities invested in intangible heritage.

11Experiences in the restitution of sound archive collections to their original communities are part of these “applied” activities. They usually begin with digital copies of the collections, which are then deposited in other local institutions. These copies are sometimes presented at official ceremonies to state representatives of the countries concerned. In recent years, however, these experiences have been enriched by practical and theoretical reflection, as exemplified by the recent Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation (Gunderson et al. 2018), as well as the many institutional programs, personal initiatives, and international symposia devoted to these issues. Discussions focus on the terminology used in these operations, which waver between “restitution,” “return,” “exchange,” and “repatriation/rematriation.” They consider practical difficulties, such as identifying the current custodians of source communities, the many obstacles encountered in the circulation of documents, which is never one-directional, and the inevitable failures.

  • 6 These examples were notably presented by Joséphine Simonnot and Aude Julien Da Cruz Lima at a press (...)

12It would be illusory to think that curators and collection managers have a complete overview of the trajectory of sound documents in the digital age. A large proportion of recordings already on the marketplace, such as those from record collections (edited collections), escape any exhaustive analysis of their uses and creative re-appropriations. Similarly, certain previously unreleased recordings, freely available on certain institutional platforms, are widely circulated thanks to the use of embedded players that enable users to export access to a sound document to their private websites and blogs. One example of this is the CNRS-Musée de l’Homme Archives platform managed by the Centre de recherche en ethnomusicologie (CREM), which has made it possible to share data and visualize certain reuses on social media, as in the blog of a specialist in the Algerian Korandjé dialect, which includes players from recordings made in the 1950s. The author enriches the transcription and translation in three languages and adds scientific commentary. Another unexpected example is the reuse of recordings of entertainment songs made in Gabon in 1970. These found their way into a Gabonese blog promoting local culture alongside recipes for cassava pastries; as a result, the recordings managed by the CREM were among the most consulted online in 2019.6 In short, if further reminders were necessary, the use of archives should also be considered beyond the narrow spectrum of research, by including local re-uses and also the sometimes sparse but growing fabric of artists using them for creative purposes (Lobley 2022).

13The following series of “chronicles” reports on a variety of experiences in the field, and debates the status of decentralized collections, restitutions of archival collections, and artistic experiments based on historical recordings. They represent more of a “sharing of experiences” than a guide to “best practices” that should be followed to “better” restitute past sound archives. These “chronicles” give exposure to these recent, reflexive experiences.

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Bibliographie

Ajotikar, Rasika, and Eva-Maria Alexandra Van Straaten. 2021. “Postcolonial Sound Archives: Challenges and Potentials. An Introduction.” The World of Music 10 (1): 5–20.

Aubert, Laurent, ed. 2009. Mémoire vive: Hommages à Constantin Brăiloiu. Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève/Infolio.

Aubert, Laurent, Monique Desroches, and Luciana Penna-Diaw, eds. 2016. “Ethnomusicologie appliquée.” Special issue, Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie 29.

De Largy Healy, Jessica. 2016. “Archives sonores et médiation de l’ancestral dans le film Two Brothers at Galarra (Terre d’Arnhem, Australie).” Gradhiva 24. Accessed September 27, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.3256.

Ginouvès, Véronique. 2004. “Ethnomusicological Collections in the Sound Archives in the Face of Globalization.” XIII International Oral History Conference: Memory and Globalization (Rome, June 23–26, 2004). International Oral History Association. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00004094v1.

Guillebaud, Christine, and Madeleine Leclair. 2024. “Le sens caché des choses. Entretien avec Madeleine Leclair.” Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie 37: 240–72.

Gunderson, Frank, Robert Lancefield, and Bret Woods, eds. 2018. The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation. Oxford University Press.

Harrison, Klisala, Svanibor Pettan, and Elizabeth Mackinlay, eds. 2010. Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary Approaches. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Landau, Carolyn, and Topp Janet Fargion. 2012. “We’re All Archivists Now: Towards a More Equitable Ethnomusicology.” Ethnomusicology Forum 21 (2): 125–40.

Lobley, Noel. 2014. “Sound Galleries: Curating the Experience of Sound and Music in and Beyond Museums.” Music in Art 39 (12): 243–55.

Lobley, Noel. 2022. Sounds Fragments: From Field Recording to African Electronic Stories. Wesleyan University Press.

Pettan, Svanibor, and Jeff Todd Titon, eds. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology. Oxford University Press.

Seeger, Anthony. 1986. “The Role of Sound Archives in Ethnomusicology Today.” Ethnomusicology 30 (2): 261–76.

Seeger, Anthony, and Shubha Chaudhuri. 2015. “The Contributions of Reconfigured Audiovisual Archives to Sustaining Traditions.” The World of Music 4 (1): 21–34.

Seeger, Anthony, and Shubha Chaudhuri. 2004. Archives for the Future: Global Perspectives on Audiovisual Archives in the 21st Century. Seagull Books.

Simonnot, Joséphine. 2020. “Partager les archives sonores du musée de l’Homme sur le Web avec la plateforme Telemeta.” Bulletin de l’AFAS. Sonorités 46. Accessed September 27, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/afas.4056.

Spielmann, Florabelle, Aurélie Helmlinger, Joséphine Simonnot, Thomas Fillon, Guillaume Pellerin, Bob L. Sturm, Oded Ben-Tal, and Elio Quinton. 2017. “Zoom arrière. L’ethnomusicologie à l’ère du Big Data.” Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie 30: 9–28.

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Notes

1 As a reminder: in parallel with this dissemination, a particularly prolific field of research on intellectual property rights and the ethical foundations associated with the commercial and artistic uses of recorded resources has been established.

2 Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, formerly director of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University.

3 Formerly curator at the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève and director of the Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie.

4 The institutions present were based in Austria, China, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Nepal, Peru, South Africa, Vietnam, Sudan, the Philippines, and the USA (ibid., xi).

5 Head of Collections for the “World and Traditional Music” department, then for “Sound & Vision” at the British Library

6 These examples were notably presented by Joséphine Simonnot and Aude Julien Da Cruz Lima at a press conference at the CREM organized by Christine Guillebaud and Aurélie Helmlinger for the Association des journalistes scientifiques de la presse d’information in September 2019.

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Référence électronique

Christine Guillebaud, « Sound archives. Introduction »Gradhiva [En ligne], 38 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 juin 2025, consulté le 10 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/8656 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/1451l

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Auteur

Christine Guillebaud

CNRS, Centre de recherche en ethnomusicologie du LESC, Université de Genève
christine.guillebaud[at]cnrs.fr

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