Babbitt correspondence, Composers Forum recordings - some progress

Now that the valiant Angela Perez has been assisting with the processing work, we've finished putting most of the Babbitt correspondence in folders, and will begin work on the finding aid for this material soon. We'll provide detail to the folder level for this correspondence, but more general description for the other materials in the collection (such as administrative records, equipment manuals, etc.).

On a separate note, we're hoping that we may focus on a sub-section of the recordings, the Composers Forum concert recordings, on reel-to-reel tapes. The Composers Forum was established in 1935, with funding from the WPA, to present the work of American composers. It was active initially in New York; when the WPA ended, it continued briefly in San Francisco under private patronage, went on hiatus during the war, and then was revived under the joint sponsorship of the New York Public Library and Columbia University in 1947.


The reel-to-reel tapes in the archives here represent recordings from this later phase of the Composers Forum. The Electronic Music Center's involvement here appears to have been to record the concerts, which were held at several locations around New York. Most if not all of the works appear to be acoustic, rather than electronic, works. Pril Smiley, a former director of the Center, described to me hauling a large Ampex reel-to-reel recorder and mic to Midtown to record a concert (and these machines weighed a ton!).

There is an existing card file index to this material, which is arranged by composer. If transferred to electronic format, it would allow people to also search to see what the contents of a particular reel is, or to browse the recordings chronologically, for example. This is one concrete step towards improved access that we hope to undertake soon, since the necessary preservation work is a more long-term proposition.

A significant feature of the Composers Forum concerts was the inclusion of a discussion period, where composers would discuss their works. This aspect appears to be well-represented on the reels in this collection, with many labeled to indicate "discussion" or "comments". Besides the obvious value of the musical works recorded on the tapes, we think that the discussion material will be of value and interest to researchers interested in American art music from this period.

News update

Due to a staff vacancy in the Music & Arts Library, where I work, there hasn't been much news lately. However, I hope to soon resume work on the archives.

I've had a kind offer of assistance from an interested colleague, so we are presently brainstorming what work we can undertake to improve information access to these materials. Likely candidates are continuing to work on the personal papers contained in the collection, and getting a finding aid for the collection up on the web. Check back for new developments!

BBC story highlights "earliest" computer music

The BBC has an interesting story up on their web site, which describes what is said to be the earliest recording of music by a computer. An amusing audio clip, beginning with a computer rendition of "God save the Queen", is included. The recording was generated by the Ferranti Mark I, called the "... first commercially available general purpose computer".

Audio survey tool

I'm currently using an audio survey tool, developed by the Preservation Division of the Columbia University Libraries, to conduct a survey of a controlled sample of the recordings in the collection. A similar tool is also offered by the Sound Directions project at Harvard.

As can be seen from many of the images that I've been posting on the blog, the recordings in this collection are in poor environmental conditions, and are showing signs of damage. I'm hoping that the data generated by this survey will provide some baseline data for advocating for future preservation. I will survey a 350-item sample from the total of 5,569 recordings.

The survey tool is built on an Access database, and it is designed for use by non-specialists in recording media. It features many drop-down menus in fields that enable quick and consistent data entry. That said, it also contains many fields that can capture advanced technical details of the items being surveyed. The accompanying manual is clear and detailed, and I've found it easy to use.

However, there were a few hurdles. Firstly, it's Windows only. I use a Mac laptop, so my options were to get Windows up and running on my Mac (by using something like Parallels Desktop), or, to gather the data needed by hand, and then input the data when I had access to a Windows machine. I chose the latter.

In practice, I have a feeling that gathering data by hand may be easier and quicker for most people, but, your mileage may vary. Since surveying the materials often means clambering into hard-to-reach corners and upper shelves, I wouldn't want to be running back and forth, and the space I'm working in doesn't have a comfortable place to sit down with a laptop!

So, my solution was to mock up a paper sheet with the important fields, following the order given on the program's input form, and then use abbreviated codes to gather data by hand on the sheet on a clip-board. I know, not very high-tech! If you wanted to be more space-age, you could perhaps try to get the program up and running on a hand-held PDA or something.

All in all, it seems like quite a useful tool. I've learned some new things about audio formats, and the various forms of damage you might find, such as "cupping", "windowing", and "non-library wind" (if you really want to know, you can find some detailed imaged in this document).

I'll be posting the results of the survey here, as it is completed.

Some statitstics from the collection

OK, I've arrived at some summary numbers for the collection:

Recordings:

2,682 7" reels 141.16 linear feet
2,177 10.5" reels 145.13 linear feet
4,859 Total tape reels 286.29 linear feet

73 CDs+CDRs
430 DATs
16 Records, 16"
100 Records, 12"
3 Records, 10"
8 Records, 7"
6 Cassettes
1 Beta PCM
6 Mini-discs

15 VHS tapes
42 Mini-DV cassettes

Total documents and manuscripts 72.5 linear feet

137 sub-total, music scores (printed, ozalid, manuscript)
98 sub-total, punched paper rolls (RCA synthesizer)

More compostional techniques?

As we've seen with tape splicing, some compositional processes in electronic music in the early days of the Center were time-consuming and painstaking. Unlike today, when audible feedback on compositional choices can be almost instantaneous, much planning would often need to go into the generation of electronic sound.



Many punched paper rolls are found in the archives, apparently used to generate sounds on the RCA sysnthesizer. The edges of the paper rolls are perforated, and holes were punched in the paper to generate sound.



Scattered throughout many of Babbitt's papers and sketches are references to "holes", "ratios", and "gears".



I hope to gain some more insight into these terms by speaking to the Associate Director of the Center. I'm speculating that perhaps "holes" refers to the holes punched in the paper rolls, and that the calculations had to do with tempo. I'm still not sure how "gears" and "ratios" fit in, but it would be interesting to determine if they have any connection to the fractional notations found in some Babbitt scores and sketches.

And, just how might this fit into things!?

Some tools of the trade

Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky pioneered the use of the tape recorder as a compositional tool, and many composers to follow spent hours working over tape splicing blocks, razors and china markers in hand.



One box in the archives contains a collection of individual loops made by Ussachevsky.



Some are marked with china marker, sometimes to indicate pitch.

Vinyl included

Contained in the archives are a handful of 7" vinyl records. Here is one which features compositions by Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, and Luc Ferrari (showing front and back of sleeve):






The collection contains a few others, which were apparently issued as accompanying material to numbers of the "Gravesaner Blatter", a periodical focused on experimental and electronic music. Here are examples of a few discs published by Hermann Scherchen's "Experimentalstudio Gravesano" in Switzerland, covering techincal processes of electronic music, works by Pierre Schaeffer, and examples of filter experiments:








Unfortunately, some of the discs are showing signs of warping, or in one case, chipping.

Now, things get interesting...

My latest work in the archives has yielded some really interesting items. Along with the predictable administrative records such as financial statements and requisitions, there has been a parade of interesting items, led by sections of music manuscript by the prominent American composer Milton Babbitt. There are what appear to be sketches or drafts of portions of at least two works, "Phonemena" and "Occasional Variations".



















Here's a detail of one of the scores. Many pages include numerical annotations, that may perhaps refer to serial or other compositional processes.
















Here is what could be a compositional matrix of some kind, perhaps associated with "Occasional Variations" (this sketch was contained in an envelope with music manuscript sketches, marked with this title).

Temperature and environment

Well, it's been hot in NYC...we've had an early June heat wave. Things have cooled down a little, but as I work it's clear that this is not an ideal archival environment. It's hot! I'd estimate that it's about 80 degrees plus in here.

Survey/Inventory underway

I've begun the survey/inventory of the archives. I've started with the 4 filing cabinets, which seem to contain the bulk of the paper documents. I'm going through each and detailing the contents, making notes of items of particular interest, the general organization, and also particular topics and people that are cropping up.

As I mentioned earlier, there have been some earlier attempts to organize some of this material, so I'm trying to get a feeling for what may have been changed or moved, in order to address issues of original order, when it comes time to map out the arrangement of the archives.

More pics of unprocessed materials

I'm guessing that the collection consists approximately of 80% reel-to-reel tapes. Not the sturdiest storage - check out the angle of the shelving to the wall line of the corner to the left!


Although most of the reels are in boxes, a significant number are either loose or in less-than desirable containers.


The collection contains four 4-drawer two 4-drawer and two 5-drawer file cabinets, housing a variety of materials, including administrative records, correspondence, equipment manuals, and music scores. There has been some attempt in the past to organize the files (note the yellow hand-written sheets), but the work was never completed. This will pose a challenge as I try to evaluate the organization and original order of the collection.

First Impressions

So, open the door, hit the light switch and.......voila!

Here's where I'll be working for the next 100 hours or so.

I've decided on this plan of action:

• Do broad survey/inventory of materials
• Draft plan on description and arrangement
• Decide which portion of collection to process, given my limited time
• Process that portion
• Draft finding aid
• Mount finding aid on web

Whew! This should keep me going for a while...

Del.icio.us tag for CMC archives-related links

I'll be using the tag "cmcarchives" on del.icio.us for any related links to this project. Feel free to tag any related resources in del.icio.us using this tag (I'll subscribe to it, so will be aware of new links), or forward them to me using the "for:nickpatterson" tag.

Getting started

This blog is about the processing of the archives of the Computer Music Center at Columbia University, formerly the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

I hope to detail some of the materials, challenges and discoveries during the course of my processing work.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!