Doing research in sound Music-making as creative intervention

This chapter reflects on Scaldaferri's research experience in Basilicata over a period of thirty years, examining in particular the role of his music-making activity as a form research in sound. Scaldaferri's activity as a zampogna player represented a constant opportunity to interact and dialogue with local musicians and, through them, with local communities. Both within the Arbëresh minority from which the author originates and in the wider context of the region, research took the form of constant participation in religious festivals, pilgrimages and collective rituals. The chapter problematises performance-based research by a native researcher, describing his shifting positionality and interventionist approach to musical traditions often undergoing marked decline. Performed sound has not just been the medium in which the research was carried out, but became a form of representation that went beyond traditional textual formats through collaborations with local performers or international artists and composers. Some of these collaborations, with local institutions, resulted in forms of repatriation of the outcomes of the research, which often were integrated in the local politics of heritage.
[2020]

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