Exploring the soundscape of Royal entries in the early Modern period

My research project, ‘ExpSoundscapes’, focuses on the study of the soundscapes of historical festive events. Soundscapes have been addressed from a variety of standpoints in the last decades. Urban musicology contextualizes them by highlighting their spatial dimension, also studying their as representations of ideological, social, economic, political and cultural values. Scholars from the field of cultural studies, and most particularly sensory studies, advocate a phenomenological approach of the soundscapes, one that puts the emphasis on the individual and collective experience of them. Research in the arts (especially that making use of technology to recreate heritage) is creating proposals to communicate soundscapes experientially. Notwithstanding the limitations of apprehending the soundscapes of the pre-recording era, this research is developing methodologies to render a direct dialogue between modern listeners and the sounds of the past by integrating the aforementioned methodologies.

The project’s object of study is the Royal entries in the Early Modern period, more specifically those of Emperor Charles V’s entries in Iberian cities (1517-58). In this presentation, I will be showing the preliminary results of my search for sonic elements that constitute the multi-layered and distinct urban soundscape of the royal entries.