The Cylinders of the Tokyo National Museum of Art and the Archeophone

The round-trip of eleven wax cylinders between their place of conservation and the Archéophone headquarters (March 2008) and the Project for the Preservation and Digitization of Meiji Era Wax Cylinders (November 2008)

Tokyo-Paris-Tokyo: Round-trip of Eleven Wax Cylinders

The Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku, also known as National University of Music and Fine Arts in Tokyo, formerly Tokyo School of Fine Arts, founded in 1887, collects artworks for teaching and research. This university also houses collections from the Faculty of Music (formerly Tokyo Music School). It is now one of the largest collections in Japan, with approximately 28,000 items related to music and fine arts, housed in the University Art Museum (open to the public since 1999), which is also an inter-university research institute. The museum has decided to transfer the sound recordings from wax cylinders to digital media and has honored the Archéophone by selecting it for this task. Ms. Chicaco Matsumura, a research associate at the National University of Music and Fine Arts in Tokyo, and Mr. Ryo Furuta, an associate professor, brought eleven precious cylinders wonderfully packaged to Paris. These cylinders are the result of ethnomusicological studies conducted in the 1900s.

A composition of pictures of japanese cylinders

On the left: "fragile, handle with care"
In the center: the cylinders upon their arrival
On the right: example of a commercial Japanese cylinder

The museum catalog entry for a cylinder. Each cylinder in this collection is described similarly.

Madame Chicaco Matsumura, during the working session.

Detail of a commercially sold Edison cylinder.

The Archeophone at Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku

Invited by Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku, I was finally able to digitize nearly 200 cylinders on-site in Japan at the Museum in October-November 2008. This work allowed us to conclude the Preservation and Digitization Project of Wax Cylinders from the Meiji Era by the end of 2008, supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Starting in 2006, it mainly involved a survey on the condition and nature of cylinder collections - both public and private - in Japan and around the world. In addition to the cylinder digitization using the Archeophone, this research led to a publication in 2009: Masato SATSUMA (Ed.); Chikako MATSUMURA (Ed.); Project on The Preservation and Digitization of Wax Cylinders in the Meiji-era, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo, 2009, 123 p.