Imagine...ADAMS The Academic Digital Audio Music Server of the College Music Society
John Buccheri
If you begin to gather materials for your new course on orchestral (or vocal, or piano, or wind brass, or string) literature, that you can make available to your students a variety of excellent recorded performances from a number of colleges, universities, and conservatories.
Imagine, as you begin to design your course on music of the United States, that you can draw upon archives of Native American music, or slave songs, or Tin Pan Alley tunes from other institutions.
Imagine, in your course on medieval and renaissance music, that your students can listen to recordings of Josquin's motets, or collections of dance music played on original instruments from early music ensembles residing on campuses in California, New York, or Texas.
Imagine that all this can be done using streaming audio at your computer a website supported and maintained by The College Music Society at little or no cost to any music department listed in the CMS Directory. I am pleased to say that we are now past the stage of merely imagining these possibilities are now beginning to confront the significant challenges - technical, legal, and financial that need to be met to make ADAMS ( Academic Digital Audio Music Server) a reality .
ADAMS is conceived as an online repository of recorded sound available to the education community for research and study, gathered from collections of music originally recorded on college campuses. Since audio recording is possible at reasonable cost, many colleges and conservatories have archived performances by their resident ensembles, guest artists, faculty, and students. Hihg-quality performances remain used as an educational resource and continue to gather dust on music libraries' shelves
And here's another lamentable aspect; think about the number of individuals, only some of them music majors, who have taken part in recitals, holiday concerts, religious services, festivals, and other events where music has played a major role since the advent of school recording. For certain, participation in a chorus, wind ensemble, marching band, or orchestra enriches the memories of many of our citizens. Yet this vital part of our music culture, largely hidden, remains uncelebrated.
Record companies, while they control the copyrights to a huge collection of works performed by famous artists of the past century, are no longer investing resources in their classical holdings. Yet there still exists a well-defined niche market literature – in music department and schools. At the same time, many music units cannot afford to replace aging vinyl recordings with compact discs, and they often have a variety of other problems with storage, security, and accessibility.
Can our students learn only from hearing von Karajan's Beethoven symphonies, or Solti's Mahler symphonies? Or might they learn as much if not more from an excellent performance of the Eroice by the Juilliard Orchestra? I have heard many student performances that equal performances by the "Big Five" in concentration, intensity, excitement if not polish. I have also heard many flawed student performances that afford optimal teaching opportunities.
The significance of ADAMS, though, will lie not only in its potential to fulfill the need for renditions of canonical Western masterpieces, but in its ability make accessible a truly extraordinary range of literature that reflects richness and our musical culture.
Consider this sampling:
- New, perhaps unpublished, works by faculty composers
- World music by resident ensembles
- Jazz music—big bands and combos
- Wind ensemble and marching band music
- Music of a locale or region
- Music of the American past (many music libraries have priceless, unique collections; for example, there are rare audio recordings held in the new Center lor Southern African-American Music at the University of South Carolina.)
- Electronic music
- Experimental performances (I remember years ago singing Bach's B Minor Mass with a healthy dose of notes inegales—a fascinating expenence)
- Western European music of the past three centuries that is rarely performed
Moreover, we hope that ADAMS will stand as evidence that we do not equate music of worth only with music that sells. Commercial and legal interests must not be left as the sole arbiters of the cultural trace we leave behind for historians' scrutiny.
From my discussion with individuals from whom I have sought advice emerges the outline and variety of the problems to be solved. Music administrators and faculty are immediately concerned with "whose music gets uploaded?" and "how are the performances screened?" Librarians see it as a cataloging challenge, a problem of the nature of the descriptive vocabulary, and ADAMS' scope and critical mass. Audio and computer technicians get concerned about formatting, compression ratios, maintenance of servers, the kind and amount of traffic anticipated, and the nature of the user interface. "You need a good business plan" say the consultants who know. And of course the facial muscles of lawyers and copyright-law watchers tighten when they think about intellectual property, permissions, and the like as they are told about ADAMS.
Here's what we plan to do: A description of the ADAMS project-something like this column-will be sent to a number of experts in the above fields. They will be invited to react, offer suggestions and criticism, and give a measure of their enthusiasm or disfavor. From among those responding, we will constitute a blue ribbon panel, share responses, and, in the not too distant future, hold an ADAMS Symposium to determine our next steps.
I hope it is evident from my having written this Newsletter page on the subject of ADAMS that I am interested in your reaction as well. I am personally committed to doing what I can to make ADAMS a reality, for I believe it can be an exemplary fulfillment of the mission of the College Music Society. I expect to have some time to devote to this project when my term as President comes to an end this December.
As I place the gavel into the competent hand of Professor Robert Weirich, I extend my most heartfelt thanks to the members of CMS for granting me the privelege of serving as your President.