About

Echos - Sound Ecosystems in Travelogues is a WebApp connected with a relational database collecting literary descriptions, scores and images of musical events produced during travels around the world, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century.

Echos — which means sound in ancient Greek (ἦχος) — also includes descriptions of sounds from the natural environment. As the climate changes modified the soundscape of cities and geographical areas, history and politics tailored the human musicality during the centuries.

Travel narratives offer precious clues to reconstruct the musical ecosystems of oral and written cultures of the past — now ignored or disappeared — contributing to our knowledge of the human musicality and to the preservation of the world natural and cultural heritage.

Echos - Sound Ecosystems in Travelogues is an innovative green database supported by the funding PON Research and Innovation of the Italian government; it aims to map lost musical and sound ecosystems of the world as part of the human heritage.

The database offers indeed a GIS showing the geographical distribution of musical traditions and natural soundscapes, organized by historical layers.

Echos counts on an international and multidisciplinary team of young and established researchers who contribute to enrich the database. Echos works in collaboration with different study groups, such as the International Musicological Society Study Group on Music in Africa and the IMS Study group of Global History of Music.

Staff

Paola Dessì (University of Padua) - Scientific coordinator

Camilla Cavicchi (University of Padua) - Researcher

Elena Murarotto (University of Padua) - PhD candidate

Marco Tognon (University of Padua) - Full stack developer

Photographic credits

Guillaume Le Testu
Cosmographie universelle, selon les navigateurs tant anciens que modernes
1555 © Service historique de la Défense - Ministère des Armées, ms. D 1 Z 14, fol. 43