Treasure trove of African music gets digital treatment
- Published: 16 Oct 2012 at 14.27
- Online news: Music
More than 80 years ago Hugh Tracey made his first recordings of African music and earned himself a reputation as a madman who sallied into the bush with people playing drums.
That was in 1929, today his unique archives have been digitalised and used as teaching aids in two new school textbooks, realising his life dream of preventing the music from dying out.
The International Library of African Music (ILAM) is made of up recordings on 78 rpm discs and magnetic tape. Its contents amount to a running time of six months, gathered from what is now Zimbabwe throughout southern and eastern Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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