Falling down the archive.org rabbit hole 0/2?

This is a series of articles that are the result of an archive.org rabbit hole or holes into which I fell.

It started with when I was somewhat randomly wandering around the archive.org audio collection. It resulted it me discovering a number of audio sub-collections (not archive.org collections, but collections generated by queries) very much of interest to me and perhaps others...

It also resulted in me writing software that could use the archive.org API to convert a search of the audio the archive.org audio collection into an m3u playlist. This software can produce a playlist pointing to the remote audio files (as URLs), or can generate a playlist of local copies of the audio files, automating their download. But more on that later, including a discussion on some of the challenges with the metadata exposed by the archive.org scrape API.

So in my initial wanderings I stumbled on a full-length LP of highland bagpipes:

Here Comes The Famous 48th!
The 48th Highlanders Of Canada
1961 Columbia (CL 1538)
 
As I am of Scottish ancestry and was a piper and highland dancer (in my younger years) with the Black Watch and the 78th Fraser highlanders squad in Montreal, highland bagpipe music is close to my heart.

Browsing and searching led me to discover 20 other full length highland bagpipe LPs (189 tunes) (all pre-1972) and 105 78 rpm highland bagpipe singles (pre-1955).

In the next two blog entries I will list these tunes and include a link to an M3U playlist that will allow you to play these tunes remotely (for music apps that support remote files in M3U playlists). I use VLC on all of my devices (Linux computers; Android phone) and these M3U playlists work fine with it. YMMV.

Each will include links to the (remote) m3u playlists for these collections generated by the software, so you will be able to download these and play them on your device (needs Internet connection). There will also be instructions on how to use the software to make an local m3u playlist, so no Internet connection is needed to play the tunes (Please check the copyright/license to verify this is legal in your jurisdiction).

In my getting better to know these (above) collections, I stumbled on additional content that I will discuss and explore in subsequent blog entries, each with m3u playlists (for audio content). Here is the planned series, with some entries to be filled in once published. Estimated number of blog entries: ~25-30.Bagpipes

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Falling down the archive.org rabbit hole 1/2?: Highland Bagpipe LPs

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Here are 21 highland bagpipe LPs that I discovered at archive.org , digitized from the original vinyl. I think my parents LP collection had at least half of them, so they are quite familiar to me. This collection has a couple of interesting entries: I originally thought that there were 2 copies of the 1959 Highland Pageantry - The Regimental Band And Pipes And Drums Of The Black Watch and 1959 Highland Pageantry - The Regimental Band And Pipes And Drums Of The Black Watch . Digging deeper, I discovered they were both published by RCA in 1959, with different catalog numbers: RCA Victor LSP-1525 and LPM-1525.                                                   They have slightly different front covers (mirror image of the same photo is used), with LSP having a banner overlaid on the top saying "LIVING STEREO...Stereo-Orthophonic High Fidelity Recordin...
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Falling down the archive.org rabbit hole 2/27: Highland Bagpipe 78s

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The archive.org's 78rpm collection is truly vast: over 310,000 audio recordings at the time of writing! In it you can a diversity of wonderful audio recordings. Here is where I discovered a trove of older highland bagpipe tunes. And a handful more of highland bagpipe audio from other collections after searching around, resulting in 105 tunes! The sound quality as well as recording volume (especially the pre-1930 ones) of these audio recordings is often not great, so you may want to not want all of these recordings in a playlist. However, it really an amazing historical snapshot of piping.  You may notice that there are several of tunes where there are multiple digitized versions, such as: 1949 KING GEORGE V'S ARMY (March) - MONYMUSK (Strathspey) - JENNY DANG THE WEAVER (Reel) - THE SHORES OR ARGYLL (Retreat) - PIPES AND DRUMS, SCOTS GUARDS (Training Battn.) which has 3 versions: Copy 1 Copy 2 Copy...
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Falling down the archive.org rabbit hole 4/2?: Uilleann pipe tunes

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