One Hundred Thousand and Counting

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 01:52 PM

This is a reminder to a number of us holding onto family collections that we should be setting up databases and sorting the collection for donation somewhere that can use it. Deckman (Bob Nelson) did that recently, though on a smaller scale than what Fred is doing.

SRS

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Newport Boy
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 12:52 PM

I'm impressed, Fred - both at the size and scope of your collection and your work in cataloguing.

Wesley. I've no dea what Freebird or Whipping Post are. If they are database packages, at the moment I'm using an obsolete version of Lotus, which really needs to be migrated to Microsoft, to make sure people will be able to open it.

If that's Lotus Approach, almost any software should be able to use the data file - it will be in .dbf format. I needed to migrate a complex multi-table database from Approach to something that was still available and others could use. I have no knowledge of Microsoft applications, but was advised that migration to Access was a lot of work. Having tried many alternatives, I settled on FilemakerPro and the migration was fairly straightforward. The basic design is very similar to Approach, and importing the data was flawless.

Good luck

Phil

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 12:21 PM

Thanks, Fred, I was able to show my wife I haven't got the world's largest record collection and so don't have to stop adding to it!
RtS

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST,#
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 09:10 AM

Congratulations, Fred. I suppose in your spare time you are putting together a Complete Concordance to World Music from 1000 CE to the Present, right? Whew. Great work.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 08:29 AM

Hi Roy. Good to hear from you, and many muchos. I'll look forward to receiving them.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 07:51 AM

Now that is what I call a big achievement Fred. Much praise for seeing that it will be available in archive somewhere fter you go collecting in the sky. Sometime this week I will be sending you a couple of booklets that I think will be of interest. I'll want them back eventually, but at your leisure. All the best Mate, ROY.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 04:29 AM

I wanna see a face-off between Fred and Doc Rowe someday. Something like Central African cigar-box guitar meets a pork scratchings festival in Stoke-on-Trent.

BTW I think I've got that Deben Bhattacharya LP (bought second-hand in New Zealand and it followed me across the world at a time when freight was a lot cheaper), but it would take me an hour to find it.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 11:46 AM

Freda, I can't think of too much which might remind you of the Ganges. However, there's an excellent CD on the ARC label called River Songs of Bangladesh. ARC. EUCD 1675.

Sounds like it might have been made for you.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: freda underhill
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 07:36 AM

what an incredible achievement, congratulations, Fred. btw I've been to Benares (now known by it's ancient name, Varanasi ) and have travelled on a boat down the Ganges, past the temples of the old city, at dawn. I saw the Ganges dolphins leaping and playing in the water, in the pink and orange sunrise. Enjoy your beautiful folk music from an ancient culture

freda

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 07:24 AM

Thanks for the interest folks. I thought it might be helpful if I told you about how this came about.

It started when I was teaching a course on the roots of American country music. We got as far as The Wreck of the Old 97.

"Sorry folks", I said. "I haven't got a record of the Old 97 to play you." The following week one of the students brought a copy in, and we played that one instead.

Shortly afterwards I was rooting for something else. What did I Find? A record of Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston singing The Wreck of the Old 97.

'That's an interesting bit of egg you've got on your face there, matey'.

A couple of weeks later we started on the history of the Grand Old Opry and I explained how it all began with George D. Hay persuading Uncle Jimmy Thompson to go into the WSM studio and play for an hour and a quarter (or however long it was).

"Sorry folks", I said. I haven't got a record of Uncle Jimmy Thompson to play you."

Shortly afterwards I was rooting for something else and guess, what? I found a record of Uncle Jimmy Thompson.

That was when I decided I needed a database.

The reason I put so many fields in is because around that time, I also decided that the entire collection needed to be left to a suitable archive somewhere.

That's because it is not just one of the biggest private collections of ethnic/traditional music on commercial record anywhere in the world, it is probably also the most comprehensive. It not only contains Font Watling of Suffolk playing The Pigeon on the Gate, and the Riendau Family of New Hampshire playing the same tune, there are recordings of Greek fiddlers, Bulgarian Gaida players, Norwegian cattle callers, Chinese shawm bands, Balinese Gamelans, South African male choirs and the devil only knows what else.

In other words, it's become an invaluable resource for ethnomusicologists of the future. The problem is that, although I've arranged with a suitable archive to inherit the thing, they haven't got the resources to catalogue it. And without being properly catalogued, it would just gather dust in some storeroom or other, until some bright spark decided to throw it out. Hence the buckets of sweat on my behalf.

Bill D. No worries. Both databases are backed up to a pair of external hard drives. Also, I've ripped the entire collection to hard drive, and that is backed up also.

Wesley. I've no dea what Freebird or Whipping Post are. If they are database packages, at the moment I'm using an obsolete version of Lotus, which really needs to be migrated to Microsoft, to make sure people will be able to open it.

Anyway, that's retirement for you. Some folks go fishing, some mow the lawn, and some sit on park benches and study the betting odds. Me, I just toddle along with my database.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Musket
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 05:39 AM

Very good. Better than iTunes... I purchased The Essential Martin Carthy last week and it decided the genre was Country and Western. Anais Mitchell's Child Ballads was celtic and I daren't tell you what it thought of Richard Thompson's new Acoustic Classics album...

At least when I rip in local folk, it asks me to supply a genre.....

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 05:21 AM

Bravo Fred.
What doc.tom and bonnie and w Pete said.
I'm an ex-librarian, but the thought makes me turn pale!

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Wesley S
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 07:27 PM

Yeah - But do you have "Freebird" or "Whipping Post" ???

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 07:20 PM

Ummm... amazing...but PLEASE tell us you have a backup.

(all my digital files are automatically sorted and in 2 different databases.... I will not live long enough to do all the old LPs, tapes and CDS)

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:32 PM

Credit where it's due, and in the context of my having just criticised Fred on another thread, I hereby add my congratulations.

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Reinhard
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:50 AM

Congratulations! My website pales in comparison with only 3760 albums (and I know how much work *that* was...)

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 10:58 AM

A true labor of love!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 09:26 AM

> I bet you're glad I told you that.

Yep. Congrats! :-)

Subject: RE: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: doc.tom
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 08:52 AM

Well done Fred - that's quite some achievement!

Subject: One Hundred Thousand and Counting
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 06:53 AM

For more years than I'd care to shake a stick at I've been building a database, the eventual aim of which will be to list every single track in my sound collection, with the following details as appropriate:-

Region. ID. Medium. Dolby. Record Label. Catalogue No. Track No. Tune Type. Title. Performer's Home Location. Recording Date. Recording Location. Collector/Engineer. Roud No. Child No. Other Nos. Performer/ensemble. Notes. Notes.

In case you're wondering, record titles are logged on a separate database, which is up to just over 8,000 entries.

Yesterday, amid a welter of blood, toil, tears and sweat and champagne bottle breaking, I logged the 100,000th track.

It was from an LP called Folk Music and Dances of Northern India. Westminster SLP 1614. The piece in question was recorded in Benares in 1951 by that indefatigable collector, Deben Battycharia. It's called Kajli and was played on the sahnai by Shri Kanjhiya Lal, accompanied by an unidentified svaira player, and an equally anonymous duggi player.

I bet you're glad I told you that.