From Thin to Deep: Mapping Urban Music through Multimedia Web Apps

The use of Geographic Information System (GIS) in the field of urban music studies has been recently increasing. In this article, I will initially address the benefits and risks ingrained in the employment of these digital tools and highlight the importance of adopting a blended approach such as the one proposed by “deep mapping.” In the last decade, in fact, the constellation of mapping practices associated with the “depth” metaphor has shown the potential of GIS as an experiential platform, capable of including both quantitative data and qualitative multimedia content. I will then present the advantages of employing Leaflet for R, an open-source web-mapping library, in the creation of deep maps. In fact, its level of accessibility also to non-professional programmers makes it a valid alternative to commercial platforms. In the second part, I will present as a case study my research on the historical live music scene of Milan (1958–1962). In particular, I will show how the flexibility of the proposed tools allowed me to create a circular workflow that integrates historical sources, field research, and data visualization.