Re: [ARSCLIST] Discography's Demise?

[David Lewis <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I see this thread has expired, but I really can't believe I'm reading this.

I write for the music fan also, but I see it as part of my responsibility to know more than what might interest a fan. 
Where is your sense of inquisitiveness? Doesn't the thrill of the hunt appeal to you at all? If something was made, and you can verify that, you might find it someday or help someone else to locate the missing treaure. And that will help garner more interest for your subject. My father was a detective, and I approach discography with much the same frame of mind.

That's the point of it. And as to the mp3 issue, I agree - how to document them? How do I document MY OWN recordings, mostly on cassettes? These are all relevant questions, which I'm sure that as discographers we'll get to. Throwing up one's hands and saying "we can't do it - why bother" is certainly not the spirit in which any of us should conduct ourselves. You need vision; to simply be happy to redact what has gone before IS the true waste of time here.

Dave Lewis
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Doug Henkle <henkle@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List<ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx>
Date:          Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:07:30 -0600

> >Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:55:57 -0500
> >From: Michael Fitzgerald <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >Only if you consider discography to start with a physical artifact.
> >If, as has long been established, it starts with the creation point
> >of the music (i.e., the recording session), then you can document
> >plenty of things that may NEVER have been issued.
>
>      Maybe I am the only discographer in the world who does believe 
>this.  I must be the only one who writes strictly for the music fan who 
>wants to know what exists so he can start searching for it with the 
>reasonable expectation of purchasing it and listening to it.  From this 
>point of view, what is the point of my listing a song that was recorded, 
>never released, and with reasonable certainty never will be released?  In 
>other words, nobody will be able to listen to it, ever.  What am I not 
>understanding here?  What is the audible difference between a recording of 
>a song that will never be heard by anyone except the people in the 
>recording studio at the time, and an unrecorded song that was performed in 
>a concert last night?  I can't listen to either one of them right now, today.
>
> >And besides, procedures for cataloging even streaming audio
> >have been documented, so the world will adapt.
>
>      Please post where these procedures can be found.  I really want to 
>know how documentation can be written today, published in print, and it 
>will be completely accurate and sufficient in order to find a specific MP3 
>file and listen to it 75 years from now.
>____________________________________________________________
>Doug Henkle - mailto:henkle@xxxxxxxxx
>P.O. Box 1447, Oshkosh, WI 54903-1447
>