The Sedākhāne Archive is dedicated to released works of folk music in Iran from the late 1950s to the mid 2000s. The volume and scope of released works of Iranian folk music in this period has been much more than we had anticipated. Over the past few years, the physical version of many of these works, including more than 4000 45-rpm records and cassette tapes, has been collected by Sedākhāne.
Various names of musicians along with their promotional images, names of record company owners, names of commercial labels and factories as well as addresses of music stores, etc. appear in different languages and alphabets on the labels and covers of the records and cassettes tapes. In addition to the apparent characteristics and information, significant musical genres and structures can be heard from each and every part of this archive, such as Fokāhi (comical) music in Mashhad, the sound of social and political movements crystallizing in the music of Kurdistan or Turkmen Sahra, coherent and planned recordings of the Qashqai tribe music, the deep relationship between the musicians and the music recording market of Arabs in Iran and the countries in the south of the Persian Gulf, the showmanships of Shirazi Motreb singers in record studios, the expressive voice of women, the Armenian music market in the west of Tehran, the carefully arranged ensembles in Bakhtiari music, etc. In the past eighty years, the discourse of the Cultural Heritage has dictated the definition of Iranian folk music, in other words, what and how it is. In this grand narrative, the issue of the agency of musicians from different regions of Iran in the matter of music production has always been marginalized. Perhaps this is the main reason why despite the huge volume of works produced in Iranian folk music, they are mostly overlooked and cast aside. Gathering these audio works in the archive has highlighted, above all, the importance of “the issue of the history of folk music production in relation to the record industry” in different cities across Iran. The Sedākhane Archive has collected coherent audio resources and necessary documents for documenting and analyzing this history.
Thus far, these works had never been collected in an archive in a coherent and thematic form. An index of these works had not been published, so we were not aware of the volume of works produced in Iranian folk music. After the formation and integration of the archive, it was deemed necessary to publish the index of works collected in the Sedākhāne Archive, or it is fair to say the index of folk music pieces produced in Iran from the late 1950s to the mid 2000s. Every season, a purposeful part of the index of works, available in the Sedākhāne archive, will be published in the Sedākhāne Report Magazine. Scanned images of labels and covers, as well as selected audio albums, will accompany this index to provide a visual and auditory perspective for it.
Along with compiling an index, the digitization process of the archive works is also ongoing at Sedākhāne’s daily workshop. The digital audio versions of these works will be put on the Sedākhāne website. If you are interested in having an audio file from the archive after viewing the index, please share this matter with us. We will do our best to prioritize the works you need in the digitization workshop.
In the process of creating the Sedākhāne archive resources, various discography considerations have been taken into account. In the case of records, it is very common for the same work to be produced simultaneously by several commercial labels, and in the case of cassettes, by several different record studios. When it comes to the records, it is even quite common that a company would publish the same work with various graphics and label colors multiple times in different years. We have made an effort to acquire and preserve all the different versions of a work at the Sedākhāne Archive. We have also tried to keep at least two copies of each version to prepare for any possible defects in the process of making the digital version. At the same time, the Sedākhāne Archive has always been occupied with searching for better versions of any record and replacing them to ensure that the most ideal digital version of each work is provided.
The Sedākhāne Archive is considered a valuable collective heritage by gathering uncommon, rare, and sometimes unique works. For this reason, providing the necessary equipment for maintaining, preserving and studying this archive, as well as using the best available technology to prepare an ideal digital version of its content, has always been the priority of Sedākhāne’s activities. Some of these activities include preparing an acid-free, antistatic cover for the records, preparing a stylus specific to the grooves of the 45-rpm records of the archive, designing and equipping a workshop for cleaning and repairing the records with maximum precision and care, and providing a cassette deck with the ability to adjust the head angle (azimuth) in order to obtain maximum accuracy in reading the information on the magnetic tape of the cassettes.
The Sedākhāne Archive was formed over several years with great human participation. How the archive came to be, who was involved in building it up, and what was the diverse set of considerations that have been taken into account to maintain and make it accessible, have all been described in an article in the first issue of the “Sedākhāne Report”.
