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)

Live concerts is the way to live!

For those of you who have never attended live concerts, let me share some of the joys of attending a live performance. Firstly, there is the wonderful experience of getting close and personal with your favourite musicians; then there is of course the pleasure of getting goose pimples when that sound of the violin, horn or guitar pierces through your skin, or when your most admirable soprano hits that very high note and you can feel it cruising through your veins.

Well, for me, I recently had an addition to my list of thrills for attending a live performance. I recently took three friends to the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance, two of whom were seeing a symphony concert for the very time. When they told me it was their first time, I remembered my first symphony concert attendance - I fell asleep about ten minutes into the programme. When I went back the second time, I managed to stay up a little bit longer, and now I’ll do anything to get a ticket! What I found amusing was the fact that people held their coughs and sniffs until the end of a movement. It turns out my friends also found this very peculiar, but now being the more informed one, I explained to them why.

Considering my first experience, I had warned my friends that sometimes the slow movements can hush one to sleep. I told them how they must dress and that they should not clap until the end, etcetera. I have to confess, I was expecting them to dose off at some point, considering the fact that we share the same background, i.e. of complete non exposure to such music. I was so curious about how they felt that I asked them if I could interview them for an article to which they agreed.

To my astonishment, both first comers, Jimmy and Nokwanda said they enjoyed the concert so much they would come back again. Jimmy, who was sitting next to me, could not stop starring at the pianist, Katya Apekisheva, who played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Opus 37 in C minor. He was simply taken aback by her performance. Nokwanda related that she loved the performance because it was not something she was used to. For her, it was the beauty of experiencing something different. Wilson, who said it was his third symphony concert attendance, said it was the sound of the instruments that took his breath away.

When asked what it was that they didn’t like about the concert, the first thing that came up was the fact that there were very few black people, both on and off the stage, an observation which I have also made throughout the years. To this my response was that it is not because black people don’t like the music, it is because for a long time it was reserved for a few and therefore most were never exposed to it. It is only now that more young black people are starting to get involved with serious music as the subject of music is introduced into more black schools and communities.

In conclusion, just as it will take a long time for South Africa to undo the damage caused by apartheid, it will also take a long time for black people to get more involved in serious or classical music, but the journey has already begun.

By Iggy Madalane
SABC Music Library