Università Roma Tre

In this course, the impact of technologies and digital media on the worlds of contemporary music will be considered from different theoretical-methodological viewpoints. In the first phase, digital musical cultures as concept and the dynamics of their formation will be focused. First of all reconsidering the transition from analogue to digital in the music both from a historical perspective, through a concise overview on the evolution and transformations of the music industry in the twentieth-century and in the first decades of the new millennium, both in a critical-analytical perspective, trying to understand and interpret these transformations in their repercussions and implications on the music industry as a system, but also on the relationship between music and communication and between music and society. Subsequently, other aspects related to the action of digital technologies on music will be examined in a historical-cultural key, paying attention to the fields of musical listening, musical creation in the field of contemporary art music, mediation of live music experience. With regard to the latter theme, a specific section of the course will be dedicated to the opera and the mediation of its performance through digital, from DVD to streaming.

1. Gianni Sibilla, Musica e media digitali. Tecnologie, linguaggi e forme sociali dei suoni, dal walkman all’iPod, Milano, Bompiani, 2010

2. Michael D. Smith – Raul Telang, Streaming, sharing, stealing. I big data e il futuro dell’intrattenimento, Roma, Minimum fax, 2019 [capitoli 2, 4, 6, 7, 10]

3. Raphaël Nowak, Music Listening Activities in the Digital Age. An Act of Cultural Participation through Adequate Music, «Leonardo Music Journal», 26 (2016), pp. 20-23

4. Giacomo Albert, Post-music: l’ibridazione delle forme audiovisive nel XXI secolo tra performance e tecnologia, in La musica fra testo, performance e media. Forme e concetti dell’esperienza musicale, a cura di Alessandro Cecchi, Roma, NeoClassica, 2019, pp. 55-87

5. Emanuele Senici, Il video d’opera “dal vivo”: testualizzazione e “liveness” nell’era digitale, «Il Saggiatore musicale», 16/2, (2009), pp. 273-312

6. Caitlin Vincent, Digital Scenography in Opera in the Twenty-First Century, London and New York, Routledge, 2022 [capitolo 2]

Non-attending students will also read:
Michael D. Smith – Raul Telang, Streaming, sharing, stealing. I big data e il futuro dell’intrattenimento, Roma, Minimum fax, 2019 [the whole book]