Editorial

In this number our readership will find two articles, the first of which was presented at the Quarto Incontro di Studio di Analitica, held in Rimini in March 2006, and the second at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC9) which took place in Bologna from 22 to 26 August in the same year.
The first article, Complessità “potenziali” nelle interpretazioni di Aguas de Março di Antônio Carlos Jobim, written by Enrico Bianchi, discusses one of the most well known and admired pieces of the modern bossa nova repertory. Bianchi examines both the original version of Aguas de Março, recorded by Jobim in 1972, and the later versions that conferred so much international success to the piece. His analysis takes two different points of view into account: the “classical” methodology introduced by Nicolas Ruwet, and a theory of segmentation based on parametric discontinuities put forward by Fabio Cifariello Ciardi in a recent conference organised by Analitica, and published in the GATM's Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale (2003, vol. VIII/1). The objective of the article is to examine how a score that is apparently quite simple can be elaborated by the interpreter, by transforming a series of harmonic and melodic elements into a virtually infinite game of complex combinations and repetitions.
The second article, Scegliere musica nell'era di Internet by Marco Russo, Rossana Dalmonte and Vincenzo D'Andrea, studies the habits and choices of those who turn to the Internet in order to listen to, and download, music. While this article does not reflect the customary interests of our revue, an attempt to understand where, how and why many people search for certain kinds of music cannot be underestimated in musicological research. If music is to be considered not only as a “text” but a social event as well, constituting a specific experience in our lives, an enquiry such as the one proposed by Russo, Dalmonte and D'Andrea might offer an interesting contribution to an understanding of the musical and cultural tendencies of our times.

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