Music Library Listening Area Upgrade

The planned upgrade for workstations, software, and internet access in the music library’s listening area was completed during the December-January break.  The 15 workstations (Dell Optiplex 745s) are equipped with wide-screen LCD monitors, providing an alternative to 13-inch TVs for DVD viewing .  Software includes standard productivity software (Microsoft Office) as well as access to Sibelius notation software.  The workstations allow full internet access, and users may connect to their Blackboard accounts, online audio databases (see the online audio resources on the Music Library links page), as well as other online resources provided by the library.

New Equipment in 316

From Bonna to the faculty, grad students, and anyone else who might be teaching in 316, the Music Seminar Room:

Jim Stanton, of Visual Technologies, and his crew installed the new AV equipment in the seminar room yesterday, and Jim has been fine-tuning the system this morning. He will return on Friday morning to do some additional tweaking and also to provide an overview of how the system works. We’re planning to begin the overview at 9:15a, and, as you’re teaching in 316 this semester, invite you to join us if you’re free (if not, and if you have questions about the system, please make an appointment with Chuck).

The system basically is operational now, if you’d like to use the equipment before Friday. The Crestron panel has been set up to match closely those in B20 and B21. The DVD player and VCR are in the right-hand side of the credenza; there’s a laptop hookup and power supply in the table.

We will give full information on the new equipment in 316 when it’s available.

New Publications by Music Library Staff

Music Librarian Bonna Boettcher has published a review of Arthur Wenk’s The Quarter Note Tales, available from Notes magazine. Also, although it’s somewhat old news now, assistant music librarian Jim Alberts’ review of S.V. Martins’ Henry Gilbert: A Bio-Bibliography appeared in Music Reference Services Quarterly (v. 9, issue 3, 2005, p. 79-81; through the vagaries of journal publishing it appeared only in 2007). This article may be available online to MRSQ subscribers.

More music obituaries for the season…

Christmas/New Years always seems to be tough on musicians (James Brown last year, Dizzy Gillespie in 1993, Leonard Meyer, Dan Fogelberg, and Oscar Peterson this year).

The NY Times obit for Leonard Meyer is available here.  Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist, has many online and newspaper obituaries; the NY Times obit can be found here and the CNN obituary is available here; CNN also has another Peterson article, “Remembering Peterson.”

Dan Fogelberg, famed folk-rocker and later acoustic and bluegrass music enthusiast, died  Dec. 16; his NY Times obit can be found here; there is also a rather hagiographic but informative allmusic.com article on Fogelberg available here.

Stockhausen, Imbrie, Hitchcock Obituaries

All in all, Dec. 5 was a difficult day for modern music.

Two major composers passed from the scene on Dec. 5: Karlheinz Stockhausen and Andrew Imbrie. The distinguished musicologist H. Wiley Hitchcock also died at the age of 84.

Here is Imbrie’s NYT obituary (may not work for non-Cornell users) and one from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Stockhausen’s numerous obituary notices include one from the Times Online and the New York Times. A representative list of Stockhausen obituaries from newspapers and music blogs can be found here.

H. Wiley Hitchcock, past president of the American Musicological Society and a pathbreaking scholar of American music also passed away last week; his NYT obituary can be found here. Hitchcock’s official obituary from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, provided by Warren Stewart, is posted on Stewart’s blog.

Cornell starts trial of World Pop Music database

From now to Feb. 5, 2008, the Music Library is making Alexander Street’s World Pop Music database available to all Cornell registered users on a trial basis. Please check it out at http://womu.alexanderstreet.com/ and let any of the Music Library staff know what you think.

Here’s a description from Alexander Street’s press release:

Contemporary World Music will contain 50,000 tracks that deliver the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database will contain important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. A complementary database to Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries - it includes a blend of contemporary and traditional world music recordings from many labels throughout the world. The focus is concentrated on contemporary genres, such as fusion and world beat.

Many of the titles are encyclopedic in their breadth of coverage. For example, The Voice of the People from the Topic label, a 20-volume series of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh traditional music, will be here in its entirety, as will be the Passage to India Series from Navras.

The first release includes 446 albums — over 6000 tracks from many labels, including: Topic, Playasound, Budamusique, Air Mail Music, Manuiti, Crossing Records, and Lyrichord World Music. Bela Lakatos & The Gypsy Youth Project, Etran Finatawa, Daby Balde, Sukke, Nuru Kane, Don Shiva, Moussa Sissoko, Musafir, Lulendo, and Yan Kadi Faso are just a few of the artists and ensembles contributing to the collection. Future additions include music from Blue Flame Records and World Music Network. Sample albums include:

Andalusian Flamenco Song & Dance
Didgeridoo-Mania
Folk music of Albania
Guinée: Chants & Percussions Des Femmes Baga (Guinea: Songs and Drums of Baga women)
Hindustani Classical Vocal: Shruti Sodolikar
Indian World Music Fusion
Vocal Music of Contemporary China, Vol. 1: The Han People
Spirit of Polynesia
Russian Balalaika Orchestra
A Taste of Ireland: Irish Traditional Music
Africa-New York
Best of Yiddish, Klezmer, and Sephardic Music- The Burning Bush

Liner notes to all the albums are included (in PDF format) as well as static URLs to each track and album in the database.

Library Staff perform with Petits Violons de Cornell

Two library staff members, Ken Fung and Dorian Bandy, will be performing with the Petits Violons de Cornell under the direction of Neal Zaslaw in a noontime concert today at 12:30 (!!) in B20 Lincoln Hall. The program will include works by Handel and Telemann.

The Music Library has laptops to loan!

The CU Library System has expanded the laptop loan program, and we have three laptops (Dells) available for use in the Music Library. They have wireless access and the same standard productivity software as our desktop workstations. They must remain in the music library; the loan period is for 3 hours (renewable); they are available on a first-come/first-served basis, as the library has no reservation system. The full policy is posted at the circulation desk. Please contact Lenora Schneller or call 5-4011 for more information.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music available online

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, long a staple of basic research and bibliography for all aspects of world music, is now available online through the Music Library. It can be accessed from the links page of the music library web site or directly, for enrolled Cornell students, faculty, and staff at http://encompass.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/checkIP.cgi?access=gateway_standard%26url=http://glnd.alexanderstreet.com

Note that the interface is both pretty basic and a little confusing, so if you have any heavy research to do, the handy nine-volume set is always available at the Music Library (Ref  ML100 .G23 1998). Also, the main page of the url above adds to the confusion by showing only the “featured” volumes, which can be accessed by clicking on the cover images. All 9 volumes are available, but to get to the list, the intrepid user has to select “browse” from the toolbar under the title. The site features a search bar, which is primarily useful for searching geographic areas or ethnic groups. Because of the way the encyclopedia is structured, searching for (e.g.) instruments produces large numbers of hits of questionable value (unlike the New Grove and many other such works, the Garland Encyclopedia does not have individual articles on instruments; it discusses them within the context of the tradition, geographic area, or ethnic group in which they are used). Despite these quibbles, the Garland Encyclopedia is a phenomenal resource and having it available online makes this trove of information more widely accessible to the Cornell community.

Music Library staff perform in “Harlequin’s Capers”

Music Library staffers Beth Kelly (recorder, baroque flute) and Ken Fung (baroque violin) will be performing with members of NYS Baroque and the New York Baroque Dance Company in “Harlequin’s Capers,” a performance of French baroque dance inspired by commedia dell’arte at 3:00 pm Sunday, Nov. 18 in Bailey Hall.  Beth also performed in the lunchtime lecture/performance with members of the dance company on Thursday. Kudos to Ken and Beth for helping to make these exciting performances happen.