This article explores the phenomenon of musical labeling as a dynamic construct situated at the intersection of cultural and sonic-technological domains, with particular focus on its role in the digital age. Musical labels, once tied to functional, social, or ritual contexts, have evolved into contemporary designations where sonic and technological traits play a central role in shaping genres and styles. However, these categories pose significant analytical challenges, as they are social constructs that often resist objective definition. Drawing on the Musicology of Music Production, the article proposes a theoretical and methodological framework that foregrounds the active role of sound and studio-based technical processes –such as mixing, dynamic shaping, and timbral effects– in the construction of musical labels. This perspective complements traditional sociocultural approaches with an aesthetic and material analysis of sound. Finally, the article examines how streaming platforms increasingly rely on algorithms that classify and recommend music by combining user behaviour with strictly sonic data extracted from audio files, highlighting the growing influence of sound characteristics as classification criteria. This convergence of cultural consumption and acoustic analysis suggests a new paradigm in understanding how music is categorized, circulated, and perceived in contemporary digital environments.
Advanced digital methodologies have transformed music research, enabling innovative approaches to data collection, analysis, and interpretation of music practices and cultural contexts. This article examines the evolving landscape of digital tools and methods in musicology, focusing on their methodological strengths and limitations. dual perspectives, this work provides a guideline for navigating digital methodologies in music research.
In 1970s Spain, the magazine Hilo Musical occupied a distinctive position as a mediator between technology, music, and audiences. Linked to the ambient music service of the same name, distributed through the telephone network, the publication contributed to shaping listening practices and modelling musical taste within a context of profound social, cultural, and technological transformation. Based on a documentary analysis of editorials, feature articles, and interviews published between 1970 and 1979, the study examines the discourses through which Hilo Musical articulated criteria of value, legitimised repertoires, and constructed imaginaries of the public, in a constant tension between elitism and democratisation, tradition and modernity, functional consumption and critical listening. The analysis is organised around five dimensions –appreciation, distinction, identity, function, and informal music education– which make it possible to account for the complexity of these processes of cultural mediation. From a historical and genealogical perspective, the study proposes reading the case of Hilo Musical as a relevant antecedent for understanding contemporary dynamics of cultural prescription and the management of taste in technologically mediated contexts.
This article analyzes the apparent paradox of the orchestral conducting training system in Colombia, namely the existence of university programs, both public and private, that produce highly qualified graduates who are nevertheless systematically devalued within their own labor market in favor of foreign professionals or nationals holding academic credentials obtained abroad. Using the framework of the Codeterminist Materialism of Totality (CMT), this phenomenon is deconstructed not as a systemic failure, but as a highly functional circuit operating according to a dual logic. It is argued that while private universities function under an extractive market logic –selling “symbolic capital” in exchange for substantial economic capital– public universities operate under an internally contradictory logic of state reproduction. The article concludes that the systemic function of this apparatus is not the production of successful conductors, but rather the generation of a “precarized elite,” the extraction of value from aspirants, and, fundamentally, the reproduction of cultural and epistemic dependence on the global hegemonic center, thereby constituting a key mechanism of the coloniality of knowledge.
This article examines the concept of gesture in the music of Chaya Czernowin from a structural, perceptual, and transmedial perspective. Drawing on key works such as Sahaf, Anea Crystal, HIDDEN, and Heart Chamber, it argues that gesture in Czernowin’s work not only structures sonic discourse but also operates as a critical figure traversing the body, space, notation, and perception. Rather than serving merely as an expressive device, gesture functions as a compositional and listening tool that condenses material complexity into a form of structural simplicity. The article proposes a reading of gesture as an intermedial operator acting at the intersection of idea and sound, between score and embodied experience. Finally, a reflection is proposed that establishes links between this conception of gesture and historical debates on musical writing, invention and representation in non-hegemonic contexts.
The art of phrasing (fraseo) has played a pivotal role in the history of tango. It was incorporated in 1917 by Carlos Gardel as a vocal resource and later adapted by Anibal Troilo to instrumental practice, giving rise to the flourishing of inter-pretative styles in the 1940s and 1950s. From the 1960s onwards, the decline in popularity of tango coincided with the disappearance of Gardelian style of fraseo which, despite the revival of tango since the end of the last century, has notbeen cultivated again in instrumental performance to date. This article argues that the absence of fraseo in contemporary tango may stem more from a partial or misinterpreted understanding of its essence than from a lack of knowledge of it. The hypothesis presented challenges the idea that fraseo belongs exclusively to the realm of rhythm, understood in Western tradition as division of time, and examines the limitations of its measurement and writing. Instead of as a rhythmic fact, the article proposes to study fraseo as a bifurcation of musical time, which cannot be encoded by our system of notation.
Music festivals are conducive to collective catharsis, where social interaction and personal enjoyment in symbolic environments stand out. Moreover, they represent a manifestation of the festivalization of culture, driven by individuals who share the values embodied in specific musical genres. However, in conventional festivals, stages are often dominated by men, reflecting the gender inequalities experienced by women and gender-diverse individuals. This article analyses feminist festivals held in Spain between 2018 and 2024, which have emerged as a response to the androcentric and heteronormative structures that predominate in the music industry. Through a semi-structured questionnaire distributed across ten festivals, their objectives, contributions to feminist activism, the programming of parallel activities, and the challenges related to production and financing are investigated. The results reveal a dichotomy between the festivals focused on musical genres dominated by men (jazz, rock, hip hop, etc.), which seek to generate more opportunities for women on stages, and others which foster feminist activism where musical genres are not essential. Nonetheless, in both cases, music is the backbone of the activist experience. Furthermore, a trend is identified in festival program-ming that favours the recovery of traditional music in reevaluating rural life, coupled with a commitment to sustainability linked to transfeminist activism.
In 20th century music, compositions that are based on the transformation of previous works represent an interesting space. Thus, the act of transforming translates into a cultural gesture that includes: an assessment of the chosen work of the past, a form of inclusion within the artistic-cultural discourse of the new era and a manifestation of the aesthetic and ideological position of the author regarding that past (work, style, historical period, etc.). Taking into account these different actions, it is possible to establish the basic types of musical transformation and observe possible combinations between them. In this way, a textual analysis is proposed that addresses the signific and stylistic truss that occurs in these productions and examples of possible paths to follow are offered to address their interpretation within the cultural context where they are generated. Examples of Latin American and Spanish music are used for this purpose.
In 20th century music, compositions that are based on the transformation of previous works represent an interesting space. Thus, the act of transforming translates into a cultural gesture that includes: an assessment of the chosen work of the past, a form of inclusion within the artistic-cultural discourse of the new era and a manifestation of the aesthetic and ideological position of the author regarding to that past (work, style, historical period, etc.). Taking into account this difference, it is possible to establish the basic types of transformation musical and observe possible combinations between them. In this way, a textual analysis is proposed that addresses the signic and stylistic truss that occurs in these productions and examples of possible paths to follow are offered to address their interpretation within the cultural context where they are generated. Examples of Latin American and Spanish music are used for this purpose.
Based on the Purahéi Trio's version of the polka-song "Lucerito Alba" (Eladio Martínez), released in the album Paraguay Purahéi (2014), this paper addresses and discusses the relationship between modernization of popular music and socioeconomic modernization. The immanent critique of the song unfolds a historical-sociological commentary on the development of popular music in Paraguay, aiming to highlight the tension between the emergence of modern historical temporality and the efforts to contain its transformative force. The conclusions points to the exhaustion of the dynamic established between musical modernization and socioeconomic modernization throughout the 20th century.
El término inclusión, tanto en el ámbito social como educativo, se refiere a proporcionar oportunidades de desarrollo individual y participación social a personas con diversas capacidades, evitando su exclusión. El alto valor integrador de la música nos lleva a dedicar este estudio bibliométrico con un objetivo que consiste en analizar las particularidades de las investigaciones que vinculan la Educación Musical y la inclusión. Se presentan autores especializados y las revistas científicas con mayor interés en la temática. Se realiza una búsqueda en la base de datos Web of Science utilizando en exclusiva los términos: musical education e inclusion. Se obtienen 300 artículos (59 publicados en 2023) y se advierte que las revistas con mayor interés temático son International Journal of Music Education, Music Educators Journal y Research Studies in Music Education. España ocupa el segundo lugar en artículos publicados, con 54 publicaciones, únicamente superado por Estados Unidos (n=98). Delimitando la búsqueda a 2020-2024, el corpus se reduce a 193 artículos. Observamos incremento en la producción científica de esta temática. Esto puede explicarse por el aumento de la diversidad social y educativa.
This research approached the work Syrigma 1 Op. 30 by the Colombian composer Blas Emilio Atehortúa from the perspective of spectromorphology, an analytical tool developed by the composer Denis Smalley. The methodology consisted of translating and interpreting the article "Spectromorphology: explaining sound - shapes" published in 1997 and identifying and characterising sound events and objects in the work, which were put into dialogue with the concepts presented by the author. The versatility of this approach and its usefulness in describing, explaining and aesthetically evaluating a selection of compositional procedures implemented by Atehortúa in this electroacoustic work was demonstrated.
En este artículo se aborda un fenómeno cultural, el de los videos musicales ambientados en cafeterías, que experimentó un auge considerable durante la crisis sanitaria originada por el Covid-19. Se trata de un material difundido, principalmente, a través de la plataforma YouTube, cuyo propósito es propiciar estados de máxima relajación, concentración y creatividad, mediante el estímulo de la ASMR (respuesta sensorial meridiana autónoma). Tras llevar a cabo una etnografía digital, se han observado las dinámicas de funcionamiento de los canales seleccionados y se han analizado las diversas estrategias creativas que se ponen al servicio de los objetivos mencionados. Finalmente, el artículo aborda el análisis de este fenómeno a la luz de diversos marcos teóricos que ayudan a ubicarlo en un contexto social de modelos de consumo neocapitalistas, individualizados y espectacularizados.
Research on eighteenth-century music in Portugal has focused mainly on Lisbon, carefully analysing its practices, collections and agents. This trend, which produced very relevant results, has operated to the detriment of the study of other Portuguese territories, usually considered passive recipients of the phenomena that have arisen in the capital. The objective of this paper is to contribute to an improvement of the situation, dealing with the heterogeneity of the manifestations of northern Portugal that can be included under the expression “salon music”. At the same time, it is intended to show the problems that a restrictive consideration of this academic label would entail in relation to this location at the end of the Ancien Régime. All of this represents a methodological challenge due not only to the dispersion (sometimes scarcity) of sources, but also because the issue has not been treated holistically until now. The paper reveals the continuous interaction between northern halls and other areas with a musical presence, such as theatres and churches, often diluting the borders that separated them. Furthermore, although the Lisbon influence in this entire process is undeniable, reducing what happened to simple center-periphery dynamics does not correspond exactly to the complex reality.
