Digitisation / Cataloguing of non-textual objects: Digitalisation of historical and contemporary musical instruments in extended visualisations

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Lars-Christian Koch
• Subject Area: Asian Studies ; Musicology
• Term: from 2012 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 203751116

The aim of the project is the digitisation of historical and contemporary South Asian musical instruments – with a focus on the collection of Sourindo Mohan Tagore (1840 – 1914 Kolkata) – in extended visualisations and enlarged metadata structures as basis for the development of a reconstruction research including music archaeological methods.The first step will be the digitisation of S.M. Tagore’s collection by means of 3D and CT scans. Additionally other South Asian objects from the museum’s collection will be digitised in the same manner for comparison (approx. 430 instruments).The acquired data will allow studies on chronology, material properties, cultural determined applications (patina, traces of usage), aesthetical principles and craftsmanship; studies that would usually require elaborated research in the field.A database will be set up in that context as a basis – complemented by additional research in other European and Indian collections – for the reconstruction and to a smaller extent the reproduction of damaged or destroyed instruments. At the same time the data will help to create the premise for the construction of pan-European database that can serve as a model for similar projects in the research of musical instruments.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)