Stories From the Archive

Dr. Fredric Lieberman

           March 1st 1940- May 4th 2013

This new feature highlights interesting finds from the audio collections of the Center. The majority of the CCMC’s collection is from the personal library of the late ethnomusicologist Dr. Fredric Lieberman. In this article, we honor his life and work.

Fred

(Dr. Fredric Lieberman)

            Among ethnomusicologists—people who study the relationship between musical sounds and human cultures—Dr. Lieberman is known for his contribution to the study of Chinese music. In order to satiate a growing demand from European and American scholars for primary source material on Chinese music, Dr. Lieberman traveled extensively in Taiwan during the 1960s and 1970s making contacts with local musicians and conducting recordings of performances on “national instruments” like the qin (7-string zither), zheng (16-string zither) and erhu (2-string fiddle). Many of the recordings he collected are now in our archives.

            Along with this fieldwork, Lieberman published several written works comparing the music of China to that of neighboring countries like Japan, Korea, and Laos. He examined the way that different styles of Asian music influenced one another and speculated on the origins of instruments, scales, and performance settings found across the continent. While visiting Taiwan, Lieberman also bought hundreds of 7”, 10”, and 12” records