Unpublished musical manuscripts to a digital database: representing music histories in post-colonial Goa, western India

Abstract

The annexation of Goa in 1961 by the newly independent Republic of India started the historical process that changed its political identity as the capital of the Portuguese empire in Asia and emerged in 1987 as the smallest state in India. Agapito de Miranda (1911-1995), a music amateur, produced during this period a private collection of manuscripts related mainly to the musical practices of the Goan catholic elite that remained unpublished. The manuscripts contain written scores, song lyrics and ethnographical notes in Portuguese.

In 2018, the collection was digitized and was integrated into an online digital database so that communities, musicians, scholars and the general public can access the manuscripts. Therefore, this paper seeks to contribute to innovative approaches to treating sources for ethnomusicological research in the digital-virtual environment. Considering that, and exploring the concept of digital memory I will present the digital database and discuss examples and challenges faced during its construction.

The digital interface is a liminal state that extends and delimits our access to the past and has become a crucial place for cultural representations. Hence, this digital database has aimed to provide such a digital-virtual environment that could re-place the collection to its historical context. We have proposed an interface more suited to experiences outside the “user-as-consumer-model” in which visitors could immerse themselves in the historical context for a more in-depth reading of the collection.