Re: [ARSCLIST] 78 rpm fragments in archaeological contexts

[Steven Smolian <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>]

Given the complex structure of the record industry, I think this is a wild 
goose chase.

Instead, consider the electron microscope scanning of groves and content 
identification by matching against a library of sound files.

I'm off to lunch and can't give references but I'm sure others on this list 
will do so.

Steve Smolian


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oliver Mueller-Heubach" <ommuel@xxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 12:16 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] 78 rpm fragments in archaeological contexts


> Hello
> I’m an historical archaeology Ph.D. student at the College of William and 
> Mary
> working on a paper for a material culture class. My goal is to create a
> methodology for using the 78 rpm record fragments commonly found on early
> 20th century archaeological sites to help look at issues of class, race, 
> ethnicity,
> and gender. Since it is very rare to find fragments with portions of the 
> label
> surviving, the paper will focus on things like material composition, 
> thickness,
> edge-type, etc. I would like to produce a typology of characteristics that 
> might
> correlate with different economy and deluxe labels, series, and date 
> ranges.
> Ideally, I would like to find a way to read the grooves on the fragments 
> to help
> identify the type of music.  Unfortunately, the fragments found are 
> generally
> only1-4 cm. in size. The analog method that occurs to me is to cut a 
> section out
> of a poor condition, non-archaeological 78 with a Dremel-type tool and 
> then
> patch in the fragment and play, listening for the deviation from the 
> surrounding
> song. This would probably prove difficult in terms of aligning grooves and
> identifying such a minute section of music, but I will be giving it a try. 
> I have
> seen some reports of digital scanning and reconstruction of broken 78s and
> cylinders, but apparently these techniques are being applied to restore 
> mostly
> complete recordings. Is  there a way that single record fragments could be 
> read
> digitally to interpret the style of music (or even compare it to graphs 
> generated
> by the practice of re-mastering old recordings and thus match the actual 
> song)?
> I realize this is probably a long shot, but if there is a chance, it would 
> be a great
> archaeological tool.
> Thanks in advance
> Oliver Mueller-Heubach