Introduction
The ‘ARCHIVES OF MUSIC AND DISCOGRAPHIC RESEARCH CENTRE’ is a resource and
documentation
center for each form of sound related to history. It is a unique archive developed by only
one man, Narendra Shrimali ‘KAMAL’ which has a collection of more than 10,000 Gramophone
Records, Tapes and other printed as well as visual material related to music, theatre,
cinema, literature and other cultural aspects of almost last one and half century period.
This collection is one of the oldest collections of sound recordings in the world.
Narendra Shrimali ‘Kamal’ is a well-known Musicologist, Scholar and Archivist of India. He
has a remarkable expertise in disc-music analysis. He has written many analytical articles,
papers on dicographic analysis and he has been considered as an authority on Indian Theatre
Music (particularly Parsi, Urdu, Gujarati and Marathi theatre). He has been involved in
preservation and propagation of recorded music since last more than sixteen years.
The archive setup by him is a result of his unending efforts and tremendous hard
work. Although
the archive is still in development process, as far as some resources requirements are
concerned, but it has already expanded its activities all around India and even overseas. Many
researchers, scholars and students, from India and abroad, of various performing arts,
literature etc. have taken the advantage of valuable and rare material of the archive. It has
served as an important resource and reference center for many Ph.D. students of India and
abroad. Mr. Narendra ‘Kamal’ has also contributed to many audio, visual and theatrical
productions from his archive and he himself has produced many such productions. He is regularly
organizing listening sessions in Baroda. He has delivered many talks, lectures, and
demonstrations in musicology and discography, given judgements in various musical contests and
given his expert views/comments in many seminars, conferences.