Collection Summary
Collection Title
International Music
One of the world's largest collections of recordings variously described as traditional, folk or 'world' music. It encompasses most musical traditions of the world with recorded performances dating from the infancy of sound recording to the present day. It holds music of most of the world's major religions, work songs, wedding and funeral music, accompanied songs and instrumental music, as well as popular styles based on folk traditions such as bhangra, rumba, soukouss, highlife, son, cumbia, tango and rembetika.
Format
- Vinyl discs
- Compact discs
- Cassettes
- Digital audio held on video cassette
- Reel to reel tapes
- Wax cylinders
- Shellac discs
Strength(s)
Unpublished field recordings; back catalogues of 78rpm discs (especially of African, Greek and Arabic music); Africa in general; largest resource for published and unpublished recordings of English traditional music; nearly 3,500 ethnographic wax cylinder recordings
Date range of collection
-
Associated People or Organisations
Associated Places
Associated Times
This collection is about
Location Details
British Library, Sound Archive
96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom Open Map
Email
sound-archive@bl.uk
Telephone
020 7412 7676
Fax
020 7412 7441
Visiting Information
No charges
Collections Overview
Printed materials - monographs and serials relate to the history scope and technology of sound recording, covering all forms of music, spoken word and micellaneous.
Sound recordings (with some video material) fall into the following collections, the first seven managed by subject curators: Western Art Music (i.e. Western classical); Jazz; Popular Music (covering rock, pop, music hall etc.); International Music (covering so-called World Music and folk musics from around the world, including the UK); Spoken Literature and Drama; Oral History; Wildlife Sounds; Language and Dialect; Mechanical Sounds
For details of other collections held at the same location: See the location record
Additional Collection Information
Custodial History
Private donors; commercial companies
Related Publications
- International Music Connection is the newsletter of the BL NSA International Music Collection. Available in print and on the web through the IMC web page: http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/imc.html
Management Information (Type)
Collection Owner(s)
Collection Creator(s)
Collection Custodians(s)
Associated Collection(s)