Margaret [Marnie] Walker Dilling Collection, 1936-1997

Summary

Creators:

Dilling, Margaret Walker

Language:

English.

Background

Scope and content:

The Margaret (Marnie) Walker Dilling Collection is comprised of Dilling's ethnomusicological research, mostly on Korean music, Korean-American musical communities, and music of the Olympics. Included in the collection are her field notes, journals, and audio and video recordings. The types of material found served as the guideline for the organization of the following series: documents, videotapes, audio tapes, scores, books, periodicals, programs of festivals, photographs and realia, and computer discs. Much of the materials were arranged by Dilling herself and the categories were kept despite the fact that they are not totally exclusive. Material not yet sorted by Dilling were put in folders and categorized accordingly. In order to clarify the difference between Dilling's labels and ours, Dilling's labels are notated in quotes. If possible, cross references were made between the series to aid the researcher. Thus, in the document series, whenever there is a tape that accompanies the transcript, it is so noted. Conversely, in the video and audio tape series, whenever a transcription is available, it is noted in the finding aid. Most of the material is in English. Many of the materials in Korean, including articles, parts of books, and transcripts of audio tapes in Korean, were translated into English for Dilling herself. The McCune-Reischauer system was used for all romanization both by Dilling and us.

Included in the largest series, "Documents," are numerous correspondence, both professional and personal, papers that she wrote and presented, papers written by other scholars and students, transcriptions of interviews, translations of various Korean sources, copies of newspaper and magazine articles related to Korea, official reports of ceremonies such as the Olympics, and most importantly the manuscript of her book. All material on the computer discs, mostly the manuscript of her book, has been printed and sorted accordingly.

Not everything delivered to the library was kept in this collection. Duplicate materials, books or periodicals that can be found in the UC Berkeley collection, and commercial recordings were deaccessioned or integrated into other Berkeley collections. Periodicals and other items that were annotated by Dilling were kept in this Archival Collection.

A portion of the original collection was accidentally discarded by Dilling. They were mostly journals, printed documents from six weeks of summer research in Korea, printed documents of the ceremonies from the Taejon International Expo, programs, music, and field notes. (See the unpublished story for the details of this loss: Series 1, Subseries 1, Folder III -12.)

This collection, a rich source of information for scholars of Korean and Korean-American music and ceremonial music, could potentially serve as a launch pad for a number of different projects which she began but did not have the chance to complete.

--Susie Lim

Biographical / historical:

Margaret [Marnie] Walker Dilling, (b. Minnesota, 25 October 1939, d. Tierra Santa, 13 May 1997). Religious of the Sacred Heart and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego, died of cancer at her home in Tierra Santa on May 13, 1997.

An educator for thirty-five years, she received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and masters degrees in English from Lone Mountain College and piano performance from Yale University. Dr. Dilling taught at Sacred Heart Schools in El Cajon, Menlo Park, and San Francisco before joining the UCSD Department of Music in 1990.

As a scholar of music within cultural contexts, Dr. Dilling specialized in Korean music, particularly its rhythmic system and contemporary transformations of genres rooted in Korean folk practices, like nongak and sinawi. At UCSD she taught courses in world music, music of East Asia, and ethnomusicology and encouraged interaction between contemporary composition, performance, and musics of the world. UCSD recently honored her contributions to education in world musics at a reception on campus. In the practice of public sector ethnomusicology, her research advanced the creative projects of various ethnic groups in the US: Korean American youth culture clubs (NEA grant), Cambodian musicians and dancers (California Arts Council grant), collegiate African American Gospel choirs (academic status), and local San Diego ethnic musicians and dancers (Users' Guide). Professor Dilling served on the council of the Society for Ethnomusicology and was a founding officer of the Association for Korean Music Research. Her research on Korean and American musics has been published in Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, Korean Culture, Olympic Message, The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, and College Music Symposium. The Korea Foundation provided a fellowship at the Center for Korean Studies at UC Berkeley to write a book, Stories Inside Stories: Music in the Making of Korean Olympic Ceremonies (at press) in which she explores the use of music as a mode of cultural performance.

From SEM Newletter 31, no. 4 (September 1997): 3.

Physical location:

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Physical description:

Number of containers: 12 cartons, 4 half-size cartons, 2 document boxes, and 2 oversize phase box. Linear feet: approximately 44 linear feet

Related resources

Other descriptive data:

This collection is divided into nine series according to the types of material: documents, video recordings, audio recordings (cassettes), scores, books, periodicals, programs of festivals, photographs and realia, and computer discs. Some of the series have been subdivided further with Dilling's own groupings as guidance. In general, the subseries are arranged by topic rather than format. Thus, material such as correspondence is not grouped into one folder but sorted according to the topic of interest.

When referring material from one series to another, i.e. when the transcript of the taped interview is cross referenced, the series, subseries, and the number of the item is identified. Thus, 2:2:1 refers to

• series 2, "videotape"
• subseries 2, "The XXIVth Olympiad -1988 Seoul"
• tape number 1, "Opening Ceremony -September 17, 1988."

When referring to documents, the number of the folder is further specified by the container number and the name of the folder. Thus, 1:3:5-3, "Nongak" refers to

• series 1, "documents"
• subseries 3, "Korean Music General"
• container 5-folder 3, "Nongak."

Occasionally, the sub-folder within a larger folder follow the folder number and specified by the name of this sub-folder.

Most of the videotapes are in the VHS format. Many of Dilling's field recordings are in the VHSC, or VHS compact, format, and are so noted in the finding aid. The cartridge for the VHSC is located within the collection for the researcher. There are five videotapes on PAL and one on the 8mm, Hi8, format.

All the audio recordings are in the cassette tape format. The books, periodicals, programs of festivals, and the computer discs were not organized into any special order. The program appropriate for the 3.5" computer discs is the Macintosh Microsoft Word Version 5.1A.

Most of the material in this collection is in English. Most of the material in Korean has been translated into English, especially the interviews, and are so noted in the finding aid. The McCune-Reischauer system was used for all romanizations from Korean into English. For Korean names and proper nouns, the McCune-Reischauer romanization was used. The McCune-Reischauer romanization was put in square brackets "[]" and was the preferred spelling for consistency.

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Music Library

Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

(510) 642-2623

music_reference@berkeley.edu

Website