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Digging in the Takes: Using Archaeological Approaches to Study Popular Music History

image of Digging in the Takes: Using Archaeological Approaches to Study Popular Music History
  • Authors: Paul Thompson and Barkley McKay
  • Source: The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies , pp 218-238
  • Publication Date: June 2025
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_15
  • Language: English
  • Accessibility Summary:  EPUB 3 and pdf file included; compatible with devices and software which can read these formats. Adjustable font size, spacing, contrast, text justification, number of columns (ePUB only). Alternative text for images. Tagged with a logical reading order to assist screen readers. Navigation between in-text citations and reference list, and endnotes and endnote markers.

Popular Music history has been explored through an analysis of manuscripts, instruments, technologies and, more recently, through online and digital materials. In the case of recordings, analyses usually work backwards from the finished product in order to identify its ‘ingredients’ such as the instrumentation used, the way it was composed, arranged and performed. This can give us some useful information about the music but other elements are less obvious – the use of particular technologies and techniques used to create the recordings are sometimes ‘hidden’ or ‘integrated’ into the final recording and, so, researchers conducting a reverse-analysis only have a partial picture of the creative process. Researchers in other disciplines however, such as Archaeology, are finding new ways to explore historical events, practices and processes that can be applied in the study Popular Music and its production.

A particularly potent method is experimental archaeology that treats the recording as ‘archaeological data’ and is used as the starting point for developing a series of experiments that can help to answer questions about a recording's production process. By recreating some of the conditions of a recording session as closely as possible for example, an additional direction of analysis is available as the creative process can be examined forwards (Ingold, 2009). The following chapter explores some of the methods of experimental archaeology and introduces the ways in which archaeological methods can be used to further mine the history of popular music and its production and offer a fresh perspective and gain new insights into the historical context of recorded music.

Keywords: Archaeology ; Charanga ; Cuban Music ; Ethnoarchaeology ; Experimental Methods ; Recordings

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Digging in the Takes: Using Archaeological Approaches to Study Popular Music History
Intellect , 218 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_15
/content/books/9781835951033.c13
/content/books/9781835951033.c13
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References

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  14. Loughmiller-Cardinal, Jennifer and Cardinal, Scott J. (2020), ‘Use, purpose, and function letting the artifacts speak’, Heritage, 3:3, pp. 587–605.
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  15. Journal on the Art of Record Production (2006–present), https://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/.
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     [Google Scholar]
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     [Google Scholar]
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     [Google Scholar]
  34. Zagorski-Thomas, Simon and Frith, Simon (2012), The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field, Oxon: Routledge.
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  35. Zagorski-Thomas, Simon , Isakoff, Katia , Lacasse, Serge and Stévance, Sophie (2020), The Art of Record Production: Creative Practice in the Studio, Oxon: Routledge.
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