Ethnic music audio documents: From preservation to fruition

Despite the youthfulness of the musical recording technologies and the content, their preservation is already becoming an important issue to avoid the loss of precious ethno-musical cultural heritage recordings. These documents have a shorter life span compared to other cultural heritage materials and their maintenance and restoration introduce novel problems requiring different and original approaches. Ethnic music, in particular, is not based on score notation, thus the traditional music conservatories are unable to ‘‘preserve’’ the performance praxis. Therefore, in order to assure the long-term conservation of this musical culture, immediate interventions are necessary, conducted by recognized institutions and experts in the fields of musicology, cultural heritage, computer engineering, information and communication technology (ICT), and signal processing. The short life of the carriers, of the playing systems of the data, and the musical instruments, impose that these interventions are crucial, in order to avoid the permanent loss of the musical heritage which is already being heavily corrupted. In particular, for the audio restoration of musical instruments, the construction and the luthier’s know-how should be carefully considered as fundamental interdisciplinary information to help with signal processing and computational models; unfortunately, several musical instruments are no longer on the market. This is particularly true in the fields of ethnic and electroacoustic music. The preservation presupposes the presence of several highly skilled experts, since the damages of a bad conservation or an inadequate restoration are usually irreversible. Conservation and restoration activities should be therefore planned and performed within agreed international standards and procedures and carried out within institutional environments. This is a challenge, which signal processing, sound and music computing, and ICT research can contribute significantly.