ABSTRACT
The issue of authorship in traditional and folk music practices is apparently a paradox: a figure similar to the Western composer is usually absent in these contexts. However, in the last decades, old concepts such as improvisation, collective creation and the relationship between the individual performer and his collective recognition have been subjected to new questions because of the ‘textualisation’ of musical practice through technology. The chapter examines two cases that, although concerned with music ethnography, have points of contact with the Western composer and the use of technologies. The first concerns the polyphony of central Africa studied by Simha Arom. This music had a strong impact on many composers, especially Luciano Berio, who became acquainted with it through Arom’s analysis using recording and playback techniques. The second concerns the soundscape composition, practiced by Steven Feld. Based on field research on the anthropology of sound, Feld’s techniques employ practices very similar to the sound editing of the studio, an experience at the boundary between art and ethnography, stimulating new theoretical reflection.
