From the manuscript to YouTube Liturgical and paraliturgical chants on the Web

Abstract

Over the last few years, ethnomusicological research in Italy has, just like elsewhere, increasingly become the subject of collective discussion and reflection by scholars of the sector. This has resulted from a sharp change in methodological approach, which was also a consequence of the mutation that interested the very way in which music is written and the benefits deriving from this, including the one that – conventionally – we have always defined as ‘traditional’. A crucial effect of this change came with the advent of the Internet and particularly of some virtual spaces dedicated to music. The article first focuses on the phenomenon of the documentation and the on-line fruition of traditional music, especially liturgical and paraliturgical chants. Thanks to some examples, the paper also offers some reflections on the possibility of considering these virtual fieldworks as new areas of research in ethnomusicology.