School of Music renews sounds of bygone era

An ANU School of Music lecturer and Honours student are working to keep audio recordings and production techniques of the past alive.

 

Associate Professor Samantha Bennett has been leading the effort to restore and digitise reel-to-reel tapes that document the School’s past. The project, School of Music RePlayed, is a collaboration with the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA).

 

She will be presenting a paper about this project at the Australasian Sound Recordings Association conference, held from 31 August to 2 September. 

 

According to Associate Professor Bennett, the School holds around 1,400 analogue tapes featuring “extraordinary content” in need of saving. 

 

“The tapes feature recordings of concerts, of events, of exam recitals dating back to the late 1960s,” she says.

 

“We have a lot of material from when the building first opened in 1976; recordings from alumni who've gone on to do great things. 

 

“There's also interesting recordings that feature things like musicianship tests from the 1970s, and experiments where students have decided they're going to a performance space and have improvised and recorded it.”

 

These recordings, Associate Professor Bennett says, tell us a lot about the past of the institution which began as the Canberra School of Music in Manuka in 1965.

 

“It's really important that the recordings are preserved for the heritage and history of the school, so that students and staff can understand the school's past and the trajectory of its music pedagogy.”

 

There is an urgency to preserving the School’s audio archive, some of which dates back to the 1960s. The tapes are degrading and the machines that play them are also old and in need of maintenance. 

 

“I'd say we have about 10 years left before much of that material is lost forever,” Associate Professor Bennett says.

 

One of Associate Professor Bennett’s Honours students, Louis Montgomery, is also interested in sounds and materials of the past. He will be talking about his project at the ASRA conference, which recreates the equipment and production styles used to make The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

 

“I collected bits and bobs around the School to emulate not specifically the sound quality, but more the limited conditions they had, such as four track tape and committing multiple sound sources into a single recording,” Louis says.

 

“I avoided digital effects and processing in all circumstances – no computers. I did my best to use nothing that existed after 1970 or thereabouts. 

 

“This culminated in me recording a song for the band I play in [which was done under these conditions].”

 

These analogue processes are now possible to undertake more efficiently digitally, even if the sound is not identical. When asked why he chose to recreate those analogue processes, Louis says that learning how something was done once can help him to improve how things are done now.

 

“I wanted to explore how limitations, if strictly followed, impact recording process,” Louis explains.

 

“Being reduced to four channels with no digital effects – I’d never done anything like that before. Subjecting myself to that kind of masochism was hugely beneficial to how I record now.”

 

Associate Professor Bennett adds: “As his supervisor, I was really impressed with the ambition of his project and its inventiveness. It’s not every day a student wants to pursue a project of this nature. ”

 

She says she and Louis are proud to be presenting these two topics at the NFSA.

 

“It's a pleasure to present at the ASRA conference at NFSA. We've got a great relationship with the NFSA – they’ve been fantastic in terms of their advice and support for our School’s archive.

 

“We're very fortunate to have them just next door. We look forward to a continued relationship with them.”