Archiving Australia's Experimental Music - National Film & Sound Archive

notes taken at the Archiving Australia's Experimental Music session by Carla Teixeira from the National Film & Sound Archive on Thursday 01/09/2009 at This is Not Art 2009 festival. (+ links & info found whilst writing these notes up)

- archives are stored in Canberra, but there are NFSA offices in Sydney and Melbourne

- experimental music & sound art is only a very small part of the NFSA's collection, though they would like to increase its proportion and help preserve Australia's history in these fields

- not all of an artist's work is archived; the artist curates their own collection and selects representative works to be archived

- "mapping the landscape"

- Warren Burt's article on "Some Musical and Sociological Aspects of Australian Experimental Music" on Resonate Magazine

- Percy Grainger - there's a Grainger Museum in Melbourne (soon to be opened?)

- Kay Dreyfus article "Music by Percy Aldridge Grainger" ::: Muse link ::: Kay Dreyfus' Australian Music Centre page

- Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross 1951 "Free Music Machine"
The 'Free Music Machine' was created by musician and singer Burnett Cross and the Australian composer Percy Grainger. Grainger a virtuoso Pianist and pupil of Busoni, had been developing his idea of "free music" since 1900: based on eighth tones and complete rhythmic freedom and unconventionally notated on graph paper. Grainger had experimented using collections of Theremins and changing speeds of recorded sounds on phonograph disks and eventually developed his own instruments. Graingers experiments with random music composition predated those of John Cage by 30 years with "Random Round" written in the 1920's. -- from 120 Years of Electronic Music site

::: Percy Grainger: the pictorial biography by Robert Simon (google book)

- Keith Humble 1970's "Social environment I" (?)

- Robert Rooney (VHS tape - music & interview)

- NMA Magazine - New Music Articles ::: Rainer Linz' NMA page on Frog Peak Music

- Clinton Green (Melbourne) Shame Files Music label / site ::: also check out his zines!! very informative

- "Wireless House" in Glebe, Sydney. NFSA collection works play triggered by sensors as you walk past. originally this was a community wireless where people would gather and listen to radio serials, songs, programs, news etc ::: stories & memories from Glebe residents can be heard via the ABC Pool site

- donating new works? : here's a guideline on what to provide

- [1] & [2]