Music Archive for the Pacific

The Music Archive for the Pacific has been established at Southern Cross University in Northern New South Wales, Australia, through the generous donation by Malcolm Philpott of approximately three hundred commercial recordings of mainly contemporary Papua New Guinea music, and other related printed materials. Malcolm Philpott, a media lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland, has had a long association with Papua New Guinea, firstly as a consultant to the government, and then as the Assistant Director of the Department of Transport from 1974-76. His interest in the commercial music industry of PNG grew out of his long involvement in radio broadcasting. Thus his collection of recordings covers twenty five years of record production: from the vinyl era to the now predominant cassette culture.

Philpott chose Southern Cross University as the site for the collection because of the creative and performance ambience he perceived in the Centre for Contemporary Music during the national conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music hosted by the Centre in July 1994. After what seemed like a long period of negotiations and planning, the archive was finally launched on September 12, 1995 by a visiting artist to the Centre, Thomas Lulungan. The cataloguing by the University Library of the material in Philpott's collection is now completed, funded by a grant from the Vice Chancellor, Professor Barry Conyngham. A Management Committee has been established for the Archive which consists of myself, Malcolm Philpott, Philip Hayward, and representatives for the University Library, Alison Watson and Les Reed.

Aims of the Archive

In order to best describe the scope of the project, below are the aims of the Archive as developed by the Management Committee with a brief comment on each of these:

1. To establish, for research purposes, a collection of commercially distributed recordings of indigenous popular music of Pacific countries. The collection will also include books, other printed materials, art works and musical instruments.
   
   The planned focus of the collection will be on popular music by indigenous peoples of Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, and of the Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian countries. Thus most of the attention will be on the South Pacific. Because of the strong links between Polynesian cultural groups, Hawaiian music will also be included.



2. To transfer the cassette-tape items in the collection to stable digital formats, subject to obtaining appropriate copyright clearances, thus ensuring that the collection does not perish.
   
   The impulse for this aim came from Malcolm Philpott himself and was inspired by discussions with archivists and music industry personnel in Pacific island countries. Harsh climatic conditions combined with erratic power supply for climate-controlled storage has meant that fragile media such as cassette tapes are at risk of deteriorating quickly in the countries of issue. This is why there was a decision to describe the archive as FOR the Pacific . The plan is to maintain the collection so that if the material is lost in the country of origin then copies of it will be available to be returned to its originators if required. Of course digital storage will require considerable resources to achieve, and funding will be needed for this purpose.



3. To establish a data-base of information about the collection for on-line and CD-ROM distribution.
   
   The PNG collection contains a vast amount of printed material, including many hundreds of newspaper clippings. At this stage it is not certain how this material will be organised and managed, but certainly it constitutes a valuable research resource and ideally should be made electronically accessible . In the meantime detailed information about the collection of recordings is available through the Southern Cross University Library catalogue. The cataloguing of the collection is comprehensive with main entry access by artist name and recording title. Information under each recording includes song titles, performers names, area of musical origin (if available) and musical genre classification. It is possible to do a keyword search for individual song titles and performers' names. Access to a list of all the PNG items can be achieved through a subject search under Papua New Guinea Music. The Southern Cross University library catalogue may be accessed by going to the Bibliography and Library Access Page.



4. To encourage Pacific musicians and scholars of Pacific musics to visit Southern Cross University to work with the collection and to be involved creatively in the activities of the Centre for Contemporary Music
   
   Already this aim is being realised through the visit to the Centre for Contemporary Music of Thomas Lulungan in September 1995. Thomas is the chief sound engineer with Chin H Meen, the largest recording company in PNG. He has engineered, produced and played on many of the recordings in the collection , and thus was an ideal artist to be in residence at the time of the launch of the Archive. While at the Centre Thomas lectured on PNG music and gave workshops in audio engineering. He was also involved in a number of cross-cultural recording projects with students, staff and other visitors to the Centre.



5. To facilitate scholarship especially through exchanges of students and staff.
   
   Southern Cross University has a strong commitment to exchanges of staff and students with other countries. This project will provide a focus for this type of activity.



6. To promote the collection as a resource for honours and post-graduate research projects
   
   The Centre for Contemporary Music is primarily concerned with composition and performance in its undergraduate and postgraduate courses. There is, however, quite a deal of expertise, among the staff, in popular music research, with an emphasis on analytical musicological approaches.



7. To seek grants and donations to develop the archive.
   
   Since the launch of the Archive there have already been a number of offers to donate Pacific music recordings to the University. The Management Committee will also be seeking donations from record companies, broadcast organisations and other institutions and individuals, as well as seeking funds for cataloguing, storage, dissemination, and research projects. Persons wishing to donate materials or funds should contact Michael Hannan, Centre for Contemporary Music or telephone (61) (066) 203807.

Acknowledgements

• Malcolm Philpott (University of Southern Queensland)
• Raymond Chin (Chin H Meen Supersound Studios, Boroko, PNG)
• John Malisa and Austin Sapias (Kalang Radio, Port Moresby, PNG)
• Ladislaw Mlak and John Taylor (EMTV, Boroko, PNG)
• Neil Nicholls and Wilma Marakan (National Library, Waigani, PNG)
• Don Niles (National Research Institute, Boroko, PNG)
• Greg Seeto (Pacific Gold Studios, Gordons, PNG)
• Thomas Lulungan (Chin H Meen Supersound Studios, Boroko, PNG)

• The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Barry Conyngham
• The Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Leon Cantrell
• The Director of the Learning and Information Centre, Ed Parr
• The Head of the Centre for Contemporary Music, Associate Professor Michael Hannan
• Library cataloguing staff: Alison Watson, Toni Ledgerwood and Eric Cook

• Michael Hannan (Southern Cross University)
• Malcolm Philpott (University of Southern Queensland)
• Philip Hayward (Macquarie University)
• Les Reed ( Southern Cross University)
• Alison Watson (Southern Cross University)

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