Friday, January 28, 2011

The Music Librarian – SABC Media Libraries

This is the third post of a series of posts of interviews with personnel in the SABC Media Libraries. I will be posing the same six questions to all of us.

We have five departments which fall under the SABC Media Libraries here at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It is the SABC Music Library, the SABC Record Library, the SABC Information Library, the SABC Radio Archives and SABC Audio Restoration.

We work with different types of collections and different formats, and we are not always aware of what our colleagues are doing on a daily basis. This is a way of getting to know each other a little bit better with regards the work we do, and the importance of our collections in the broadcasting sector.
This interview is with Suzette Lombard, the Principal Music Librarian at the Music Library. The SABC Music Library has musical instruments of the highest quality, as well as printed music scores which they rent out to professional orchestras or music organizations on a daily basis.

  1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Music Library)
I grew up in Pretoria. My grandmother was a music teacher and my mother sang part-time for PACT opera, so I was always surrounded by music. I started taking piano lessons when I was 7, and completed a BMus (Performing Arts) and Diploma in Individual Tuition at the University of Pretoria. I taught music in Pretoria and Port Shepstone for several years. Piano and flute were my instruments at university, but during those years there were very few music teachers on the South Coast and I ended up teaching organ, recorder and guitar as well! Very aware of my technical shortcomings on those instruments, I practised and studied as hard as the students, believing (as I still do)  that it was more important for those kids to develop a love for music than to become music virtuosi.

When moving back to Pretoria, I joined the SAPS Band where I played piano, flute and piccolo, regularly performing for heads-of-state and royalty. We did some interesting gigs like police parades and street marches country-wide, but were also lucky enough to perform in Bremen, Germany at the Musikschau der Nationen in 2001. I also played flute and piccolo for the Pro Musica orchestra in Roodepoort for a few years, and loved every minute of actually playing the operas and symphonies I’d grown up with. One of the nicest jobs I’ve ever had was teaching piano and flute at the American International School in Diepsloot, just before joining the SABC.

3. Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.
As we earn a modest income for the SABC, we believe that service delivery is extremely important, therefore every single query and request we receive is a priority. In any normal day we could receive repertoire queries or requests for quotes, search the catalogue, advise clients on choices of scores and instruments, do the necessary paperwork and dispatch the orders. We rent out orchestral instruments such as timpani, snare drums, tubular bells and tam-tams as well as double basses and pianos. We have a collection of music scores including orchestral, vocal and choral scores and chamber music.
4. Please tell us about a normal day in your office. What material do you give priority to?
 
With the music scores, instruments and equipment going out regularly, there is always something that needs to be repaired or cleaned or fixed-up. Great care must be taken when moving or transporting the equipment, as most of the instruments are valuable and hard to replace. It is also difficult to have some instruments repaired or serviced, as the skills as well as parts needed are not always available in South Africa, which means that we have to source it from overseas.
3. Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?
Some of our sheet music collection is very old and fragile, and some scores are irreplaceable, especially some original scores handwritten by prominent South African composers. Due to copyright law, we cannot send out photocopies and thus the original sheet music is used by the orchestra or musicians on stage and there is always a risk that something might get damaged or lost.
We are looking forward to having a digital catalogue to replace the current old-fashioned card catalogue - it would save our clients and us a lot of time! I’m not even talking about the day we could have sheet music available as downloads…
5. If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting music or musical instrument, please share it with us.
There are lots of interesting and funny experiences from when I was in the SAPS Band, but one of the weirdest times was when we opened a new border post on the border with Lesotho. We started marching and playing, probably something like Colonel Bogey March by FJ Rickets. The next moment the band members marching on my left got shorter and shorter and all but disappeared! Luckily after a few seconds they appeared again – it turned out we had marched right through the vehicle inspection pit!
6. Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.
I love working in a music environment and dealing with musicians and composers. The work tasks are so varied that one is never bored, and there is the added bonus that one learns something new about an instrument, or a composer or composition every single day!
Questions and post by Karen du Toit.
Afrikaans Archivist (SABC Radio Archives)

Monday, January 24, 2011

The Weekly Archivist interview: Channel Africa collection

The SABC Radio Archives, which form part of the SABC Media Libraries,  has seven Archivists who specialize in specific areas/languages of expertise with regards the audio collections being kept in the Archives. There are also Archivists who focus on requests, and we have a Sound Engineer that assists us with technical issues. There will be a weekly interview that I will try to pose the same questions to each of the Archivists.

Elizabeth Mate

The first Archivist is Elizabeth Mate. She has been with us for more than a year now, and she focuses on material received from Channel Africa. She has a multiple language proficiency to enable her to catalogue the various materials that she receives for her collection.

We as Archivists find ourselves separated in silos because of the difference between our collections, and because we find ourselves concentrating on our own work in our own little studios for most of our working days. We sometimes do not know what the Archivist next to us is doing. I think it is a good thing if we try to understand what our colleagues are dealing with on a daily basis.

1. Elizabeth, please tell us a little bit about you. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Radio Archives)
I am a Namibian born South African. Previously, before joining the SABC I was a teacher by profession.  I joined the SABC in June 1989.  I was a freelancer for the first 5 years.  I became a permanent staff of the SABC on the 1st of April 1994.  I worked as a Presenter/Producer/Journalist for the Silozi Service of Channel Africa until the 12th of January 2009, when I joined the SABC Radio Archives.  I have been with the SABC Radio Sound Archives for two years.
2. Please tell us about a normal day in your studio. What material do you give priority to?
My normal day in the studio involves recording, editing, catalogue and quality checking and if times allow labeling also.  I get a lot of Actuality Programmes and that’s the ones I work on mostly.
3. Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.
Channel Africa broadcasts in six languages, daily for 24 hours, namely English, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Chinyanja and Silozi.  In a week’s time, I get about 44 CDS from the Main Control.  In a day, it is about 8 to 9 CDS.   
4. Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

I do struggle with technical difficulties in my studio when it comes to things like Wavelab but, I have people who always help me with those problems, mostly it is Marius (Sound Engineer) and Bonga (Radio Production Facilities).
5. Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.
I enjoy doing the work that I do because I learn new things everyday.

Questions by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist (SABC Radio Archives)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The SABC Music Library – interview with the intern

This is the first post of a series of posts of interviews with personnel in the SABC Media Libraries. I will be posing the same six questions to all of us.

We have five departments which fall under the SABC Media Libraries here at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It is the SABC Music Library, the SABC Record Library, the SABC Information Library, the SABC Radio Archives and SABC Audio Restoration.

We work with different types of collections and different formats, and we are not always aware of what our colleagues are doing on a daily basis. This is a way of getting to know each other a little bit better with regards the work we do, and the importance of our collections in the broadcasting sector.

My first interview is with our intern that we have at the Music Library. Ignatia Madalane started to work with us just short of a year ago. She is unfortunately leaving us at the end of the month.
The SABC Music Library has musical instruments of the highest quality, as well as printed music scores which they rent out to professional orchestras or music organisations on a daily basis.

Iggy Madalane:

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Music Library)

Hi, I, Iggy, grew up in Witbank, now called Emalahleni (Place of Coal). I studied Business Practice at TUT for a year, then did Cost and Management Accounting, which I never finished because it was choking me. So I went to Wits where I studied music, majoring in classical voice.
Before coming to the SABC, I worked as a tutor at Wits. I also did some office admin work occasionally for the Music department. For the 4 years of my undergraduate studies at Wits, I worked in the SRC office as an office admin assistant. I have done a lot of performing, also as a solo artist. I joined a marimba band in 2005 and with this band we did a lot of performances, such as concerts, theatre productions, workshops, etc. We’ve just returned from Mexico, from participating in the international Marimba Festival which took place in Chiapas in November, 2010. I also had the privilege of working with some of South African’s most revered artists such as Professor Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph, with composer, story-teller, ethnomusicologist, Pedro Espi-Sancis, as well as Jeff Maluleke and world renowned and award winning percussionist and composer Lukas Ligeti. 
2. Please tell us about a normal day in your office.


Providing our clients with the best service are our main priority, therefore we do our best to ensure that we provide them with their requests as effectively and efficiently and as promptly as possible.
3. Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.
I think I can safely say that we need to preserve everything we have, and we need more material. One of these days, I am hoping that we will be able to digitize out collection seeing that everything and everyone is going digital. Companies like Apple and Blackberry are inventing digital music stands, which means that musicians will be moving away from the conventional way of reading music from a piece of paper, to downloading the music directly to their music stands. It’s only a matter of time before the frenzy hits South Africa and I am afraid if we do not get on with the programme we might be left with no business to run.

4. Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?
Struggle? Are you kidding? I can go to campus square, buy groceries, come back and bake a cake while the computer is trying to log on.
Secondly, since our catalogue is not digitized, we always find ourselves having to either keep our clients waiting on the phone, or call them back (an expense which can be avoided), because we need to put the phone down and go search the carded catalogue to see if we have the music they require. 
5. If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting music or musical instrument, please share it with us.
Did you know that The Ride of the Valkyries, which is a music except from Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walkure was apparently used by some German soldiers during World War II. They played it just before they attacked in the Battle of Memel. This story was incorporated into the 1979 film Apocalypse Now where the music accompanies the ride of the helicopters while they attack a Vietnamese village. Therefore you might want to think twice before playing Wagner when having your Jewish friends over for dinner. 

6. Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.
It is only in this field where you can learn something new every single day.

Questions and intro by Karen du Toit (SABC Radio Archivist)