The main objective of the project is to reconstruct the complexities of the relation between music and space in a moment when Milan is not only the epicenter of the Italian “economic miracle” but also the engine of musical upheavals at national level.
In a short period of time ranging from 1958 to 1962, Milan was the cradle of Italian discography: here Dischi Ricordi, founded in 1958 under the direction of Nanni Ricordi, produced the records of the first “cantautori”, such as Gino Paoli, Umberto Bindi and Giorgio Gaber.
In the same years, Milan was “the city of jazz”, home to the magazine Musica Jazz and to musicians of national and international fame, including Gianni Basso, Oscar Valdambrini and Franco Cerri.
Italian rock and roll also took shape in Milan: here blossomed, among “night club” and “palazzetti”, the future protagonists of the genre – Adriano Celentano above all.
A widespread interest in popular and dialectal repertoires culminated in the success of the show Milanin Milanon, staged at Teatro Gerolamo at the end of 1962; the same tendency brought to the establishment of Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano by Roberto Leydi and Gianni Bosio.
Teatro Gerolamo was also the landmark of the “canzone intellettuale” and hosted several of its most important declinations, such as the show Giro a vuoto by Laura Betti in January 1960, with music by Luciano Chailly, Gino Negri and Pietro Umiliani. Negri’s own experimental works were also staged at Teatro Gerolamo. It was he, together with Fiorenzo Carpi, who wrote the music for the productions of Piccolo Teatro.
Finally, the first electronic music production studio in Italy, Studio di fonologia musicale della RAI, was experiencing in the same period one of its most important pages.
In the face of such a variety of impulses, almost no trace of that music scene remains both in the physical and cultural landscape of Milan. The investigation of the musical practices of the economic boom, observed through the lens of space, is therefore a way to bring to light a cultural heritage lost over time, covered by the stratifications of an ever-changing city.
The most suitable methodological tool for achieving these objectives has been identified in what is defined as “deep mapping”, a practice based on the synergy of visual maps, computational data analysis and field research. The investigative potential offered by instruments such as digital mapping and network analysis has in fact proven capable of showing the multiple mediations that link cities, performance contexts and practices. At the same time, the breadth of perspective offered by these techniques allowed the movement across the entire spectrum of musical genres.
A data set consisting of 8288 musical events, described across 53 features was created; it is based on information found in two of the major newspapers of the time, “Il Giorno” and “Il Corriere della Sera”.
These data are geographically visualized in four interactive digital maps, programmed in code trough the language “R”. Each of these maps addresses a different topic, such as the correlation between the type of venues and their distribution in the urban space, or the existence of urban performance circuits. The same data set was used to create, through the software Gephi, three network graphs which show the reticular structure of the relation between venues and music genres, venues and performers, performers and composers.
Both visualizations were used to catalyze the memories of eight musicians of the time, during interviews recorded with professional equipment. The audio-video materials created from these meetings are visualized in a specific digital map, creating a feedback-based synergy between quantitative and qualitative tools . In addition to this, the use of field research was crucial to balance the risk of a research exclusively based on the analysis of data and as such potentially too distant from the experiential dimension of musical practices.
All the materials produced during the research (maps, network graphs, graphs and interviews ) are accessible through dedicated pages.