technology in the field

[Katherine Hoffman]

As we discuss which of the available technologies best suit our scholarly
needs (downloading into our laptops, transferring via internet, presenting
to classes and at conferences), I am left wondering how to best integrate
newer and cassette recordings into the field experience and relations with
consultants.  In places where taping is potentially viewed with suspicion,
such as Morocco where I work, recording on cassettes and
playing/duplicating tapes for the local communities has been an effective
way of allaying fears and giving something back that people
appreciate.  Cassettes are best suited for this purpose because most
families have a tape player radio or know someone who does.  Often when I
recorded, especially ceremonial music, my consultants wanted to play back
the recording right away.  How would I have done that if I'd been recording
on digital or other recorder?  Would I have been  able to transfer the
digital to standard cassette and then distribute the cassettes?  I just
made sure to bring type II cassettes from the States and an excellent Sony
stereo mike.  That assured good quality, but of course now it is difficult
to locate and duplicate small sections of the tape without the forwarding
and rewinding that wears down a tape.

Many of us lurking during this discussion, I imagine, are somewhat
techno-phobic and are unsure how best to take advantage of the new advances
in recording.

Katherine Hoffman
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
UCLA
khoffman at anthro.ucla.edu


At 11:35 AM 4/4/00 -0700, Esther H Kim wrote:
>Just thought I'd throw in that my experience with MD has been very good.
>I've used DAT and cannot tell the difference in sound quality. But then
>again, I haven't sat down to compare the two side-by-side, and I don't do
>a lot of phonetics or music.
>
>I use my Sharp 702 portable MD recorder (paid $265 in Jan'99) primarily
>for recording naturally occurring conversations, and with a Sony ECM-909a
>mic, it has been great for that purpose (as Robert mentioned). The
>recorder is so small and light, and the discs are very easy to handle; I
>take it almost everywhere I go. I've also used MD for recording
>elicitation sessions trying to trying to listen for tone in a Tibetan
>language, and the MD held up fine for that (we were in a quiet room with a
>good mic, directly into which the informant spoke).
>
>I really like that I can determine the length of a track and name it, and
>that I can move these tracks around. So if say, the first 10 minutes of
>the disc is useless, I can edit it out, move it to the end of the disc and
>have that extra 10 minutes to record something else.
>
>Other than recording, it's been a great teaching/presentation tool. It's
>easy to play and replay tracks for a class/audience. It takes no time to
>find the right track and you don't have to rewind to just the right spot.
>
>I should also add that I've been digitizing MD to hard drive in 1 step w/o
>a problem.
>
>Esther Kim
>Linguistics
>UC Santa Barbara
>
>
>--
>Esther Kim
>ekim at umail.ucsb.edu
>