Overture
”How does digital faithfully convey the vitality of the objects recorded?” This question, for units performing digital archiving and e-learning of the National Research Program, is a fairly basic yet heavy topic.
 
In mid March 2012, I climbed up the stairs, with the new green leaves on the trees outside in the background, arrived at the office of NTNU Music Digital Archive Center. There are posters posted on the sidewall. These large-size English posters were made for when he participated in exhibitions and exchanges abroad, with images and text to illustrate the process of digitization of music files. Behind the wall was the view of back of the plan moderator Professor Huang Junren, looking sound and solid. The music coming into my ears was an unimaginable tune, an upheld singing that slowly tells of the sadness and joy of an era after experiencing decades of time. 

The first movement
The preservation of sound materials in Taiwan is like a relay game. The College of Music at NTNU is Taiwan’s oldest music education institution. They have nurtured countless seeds to sprout and grow in the field of music since 1946. At the same time, under the successive efforts of teachers and students, the College has actively promoted the preservation and continuation of Taiwanese audio historical materials. For example, Professor Xu Changhui started a folk song collection movement from 1966 to 1967. He went into the public to collect traditional folk songs on the verge of getting lost. He collected nearly 2000 Taiwanese traditional songs, including the music of the aborigines and of the Han ethnic group in Taiwan. To trace the root of Taiwanese music, he devoted his life to the work of field collection. While he engaged himself in the investigation, collection, collation, and study of folk music, he also discovered many folk artists with rich cultural characteristics of Taiwan such as Chen Da, Liao Chung-chih, etc, allowing the public to get to know the diversity and richness of Taiwanese music.  
 
Photo: the first field collection in 1958; Source: Music Digital Museum: NTNU College of Music 60 Years of Digital Archives Program

During the 45 years between 1966 and 2012, development of information technology brought along reformation in the preservation techniques. When Professor Huang Junren was seeking education overseas, he was once an intern researcher for the Moldenhauer Archieve project of the Museum of Music of the United States Library of Congress. He noticed the richness and completeness of their music archives that would greatly benefit preservation of historical material and future researches. When he returned to Taiwan, he joined the field of music archiving and preservation. In September 2004, the NTNU Music Archives Center was officially established through his endeavoring. It was also the first institution in Taiwan dedicated to music digital archiving. 

The second movement
“Every project is the basis of construction,” said Professor Huang in response to my question regarding the accomplishments of the Music Digital Archives Center. In the beginning, the Center put in all of their energy in digitizing files of the NTNU College of Music, including the ranking from the first year, admission tickets to recitals, old photographs, and field research materials, etc. Support and donations from students of the College each year became the basis for implementing the project and incentive for moving forward. Even now, Professor Huang still cannot forget the brimming emotions inside him when he received the historical materials donated by students of the first year. These materials witnessed the first step in the music education and enlightenment of Taiwan. They are historically significant and encouraged the project team in finding the value and significance passed on by the cultural relics by collating historical materials.

 
Photo: program of the first graduation concert Source: Digital Music Museum: NTNU College of Music 60 Years of Digital Archives Program

From here, Professor Huang conducted several digital archives programs under the National Science Council’s TELDAP such as the Violin Utopia: Chi Mei Museum of Violin Collection Digital Archive Project, Hsu Tsang-Houei’s Folklore Music Collection, Shih Wei-Liang Digital Music Archive Project, and the Digital Music Archive Project for Taiwanese Indigenous People, etc.

Intermezzo
Among the many projects, the Violin Utopia: Chi Mei Museum of Violin Collection Digital Archive Project was one of the most sophisticatedly developed. The results are not only fully included on the website of Chi Mei Museum of Violin Collection Digital Archive Project, after the physical exhibition of The Legend of Italian Violins: Treasures of Chi Mei Museum at the National Palace Museum, the project team but also further created a digital database for the content of exhibition for those who missed the exhibition to browse and inquire relevant information on the Internet. At the same time, the executive team added value to the application of the precious digital archives by compiling a set of teaching materials for students and music lovers and put it on the website of Applications and Promotion for Violin Archives of Chimei Museum. The team actively promoted application of the compilation in communities and schools. In the beginning of 2012, the team invited the cartoonist YinYin, using the lines of violin as inspiration, to create caricature to attract young people to get to know the rich history behind violin. They not only organized and preserved the history and context of Chi Mei violin, but also through showing, learning, and value-added applications allowed the archives to build links and relations with the contemporary society.

The Music Digital Archives Center, NTNU, in the process of development, accumulated experiences through implementation on one hand and established the standard for preservation of Chinese musical historical files. For many years, they have been involved in archiving in the fields of history of the College of Music, instruments, people, and audible literature, quickly accumulating experiences related to information technology, system management, web development, and so forth. They have actively sought opportunities to cooperate with outside institutions, promoted sharing of Chinese audible materials, and established a standard for management and preservation techniques of Chinese audible files. Their efforts were repeatedly acknowledged at exchanges.

The third movement
Recently, the Center is working on a digital archive project for Taiwanese CD’s from the Japanese colonial period. Mr. Lu Kuncheng collected nearly ten thousand Taiwanese music CDs from the Japanese colonial period to modern times from all over Taiwan, with folk opera and popular music being the most complete collection. The purpose of the project is to build a characteristic audio museum for the development of Taiwanese CD to conduct sound restoration, compilation and filing. Surrounded by these sounds, we are brought back to the times of our grandparents. Memories are pouring over along with the music, becoming even more unforgettable.

A scene from the 1977-78 folk song collection movement (Prof. Xu Chang-hui has his back to the camera, at his side is a tape recorder and the man holding the microphone is Mr. Guo Ying-nan (Difang)

The project resulted in a huge number of digital files of audible materials. I asked Professor Huang to recommend some of the more familiar tunes. Professor Huang took a moment to search in his mind and spoke of Shih Wei-Liang Digital Music Archive Project as an example, which included the singing of Guo Yingnan in the 1960’s and Hengchun folk singer Chen Da’s performance on Yueqin (a lute with an oval or octagonal sound box). From these tunes, characteristics of Taiwan’s local are self-evident. With careful excavation, we will also be able to find more gems among Taiwanese music. 

The end
The Music Digital Archives Center, NTNU is dedicated to promoting concepts and techniques of sound preservation. They also found new value and meaning to old sounds by development of teaching materials and value-added applications in an effort to create new life for archive files.
When preservation and recording have responded to the primitive human environment and needs and applied them in education, culture and innovation, and other fields in a new manner, the vitality of the archives will act and bring out the amazing potential.