On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, Steven Smolian wrote:
As annoying as today's product noises may seem to us more mature folks, they
capture perfectly part of the aural essence of this time period. They will, in the
future, be sonic time machines for those presently usung them until superceeded by
the next thing that comes along.
There should be a Smithsonian library of everyday sounds.
When the Hollywood production companies were disposing of their huge tape
libraries of analogically recorded sounds effects after converting them to or
rerecording them again in digital sound, I couldn't find any institution interested
in preserving the old ones. At that time I could have had the libraries of at
leat three of the major film studios and a bunch of post-production houses.
Preventing them from being discarded is one of the regrets of my life.
I am reminded of the 78s and tapes of music cues I collected for our
archive. Also reminds me of some transfer work I did...sound effects
recorded for stage productions designed by Norman Bel Geddes.
I agree, history worth saving.
As for regrets...I am saddened that there are so many personal collections
of composers and collectors that won't find worthy (if any) homes. I still
think we need to have some sort of national archive of American Music, a
place for recordings and manuscripts of American composers and musicians.
A place administered by those who love, know and respect the material,
and understand the needs of those wanting to access the material. There
are so many musicians who aren't, or weren't "big names" who maybe could
have been had they been say, working in one of the major cities, or had
the exposure needed to have a greater impact. Yet, because they aren't
"names" no collection is interested...of course these days, so few
collections are interested in collecting much of anything...unless of
course it can get them written up in the Times.
Karl