The Dandenong Ranges Music Council (DRMC) will enlist a professional archivist to digitise decades of music and cultural history and protect it from natural disasters.
Through a Yarra Ranges Council grant the DRMC will get access to special digitisation equipment to help preserve physical artefacts from destruction.
Lifetime member of the DRMC Beverley McAlister said the music council was responsible for protecting the musical heritage of the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges.
“The DRMC has represented community music and the arts across Yarra Ranges for 45 years.
“We have an obligation to make sure that is saved for future generations to tell the stories and help them record the music, the beautiful visual arts and the puppets for the future,” Ms McAlister said.
Among the troves of artefacts are CDs, VHS and cassette tapes of musical performances, hundreds of pieces of sheet music, photos, visual arts, posters and much more.
The DRMC has the conservation equipment and archivist for six months, and encourages volunteers to get involved to help archive the old media while learning about the process.
Those interested in learning how they can digitise physical media should contact the DRMC through its email: drmusiccouncil@gmail.com.
As the world moves on from the age of analogue media, there’s never been a more crucial time to ensure objects of the past are preserved and digitised.
Archivist Erina McCann said when she digitises the DRMC’s collection, she isn’t just preserving the physical objects themselves.
“It’s not just the physical object that’s preserved, those layers of stories that different people have worked with over the years are preserved as well,” Ms McCann said.
It will take Ms McCann and the DRMC a long time to get through it all, but it would mean the preservation of musical history.
As old media formats become obsolete along with the technology used to play them, audio and visual media becomes increasingly fragile and inaccessible.
Physical media is vulnerable to natural disasters, and even if a piece of physical media has been kept in perfect condition, one may lack the technology to actually view the media.
Ms McCann said this is why it’s crucial to digitise old media.
“We’re having these massive floods and storms… that are affecting our cultural heritage. So digitising the physical object can be a way of preserving that aspect, especially if something was completely lost in a natural disaster.”
Ms McAlister said the collection was of “national significance” and it would include many moments of the Yarra Ranges community’s musical history.
Cultural milestones like Elements, Bells of Peace, Fire Cycle and The Ballad of Birds Land would see its essence eternally preserved for centuries to come.
Bells of Peace was commissioned by the Dandenong Ranges Music Council for the ANZAC centenary in 2015, and was developed through workshops with children from the Dandenong and Yarra Ranges Primary Schools and professional artist John Shortis.
It was inspired by the story of Dame Nellie Melba ringing the Lilydale CFA bells to announce that the world was at peace in 1918 at the end of World War 1.
Ms McAlister said the DRMC needed volunteers to help ensure moments like these and many more aren’t forgotten.
“Otherwise, these influential moments will be lost to a bushfire or storm and only those there to witness them will remember them,” Ms McAlister said.
