A Multimodal Methodology for Music Field Recording and Archival

We present a methodology and production workflow for the field recording of traditional music from the Arabian Gulf. The fact that this music is often performed by groups that are constantly moving in space requires that special strategies are put in place to capture the music while the performers are moving. We developed an approach that makes use of several recorders and microphones (including Ambisonic microphones) synchronized via timecode with video cameras (including 360º cameras) in order to capture the these performances. The goal for developing this methodology is to create high-quality, multi-modal digital collections of this music that can serve different purposes, ranging from the creation of perpetual archives to creating research corpora that can be used for Music Information Retrieval (MIR) tasks and multidisciplinary approaches for the analysis of this music. The production workflow establishes a path for storing and accessing all the data gathered in these sessions.