Archive of Indian Music

Archive of Indian Music has been established as a private and not-for-profit Trust that can help conserve the gramophone recordings

In today’s modern age, with technology making its presence felt in every walk of life, especially in the field of music and audio recording, it is baffling to know that listening to the earliest recordings of our music right from the wax cylinders, gramophone shellacs (78 RPMs) and vinyl LPs unless one has the required player, is a near impossibility. A lot of these rare recordings, which capture the voices of our ancestors, are depleting at an alarmingly rapid rate. Digitization of these records, preservation of this music for posterity and making them easily and electronically available to musicians, researchers, students of music and interested public is the need of the hour. It is to achieve this hallowed objective that the Archive of Indian Music (AIM) has been established as a private and not-for-profit Trust that can help conserve the gramophone recordings and bring them back into circulation. The ultimate goal of AIM is to create a world-class archive of Indian music that is technologically on par with archives around the world and best in class in terms of sound recording and preservation capability. AIM also aims to collaborate with international bodies associated in this field and create partnerships with educational institutions, music organizations and other bodies involved and interested in archiving and preservation. Our key objectives are - To digitize and restore records and create a database of high quality and high fidelity recordings To preserve these vintage recordings and make them available for listening to students, scholars, researchers, musicians and interested public To enrich these recordings by sourcing additional information about them including biographical details of the artistes, photographs, gramophone record sleeve images and other materials of historical significance that document the era of the record The Archive of Indian Music is setup as a private not-for-profit Trust.