Computational Methods and Approaches for a Global Music History
Estelle Joubert · 2026
This chapter surveys computational approaches that can extend global music history beyond the scale of traditional close reading. It outlines how digitization, data modelling, network analysis, and machine-assisted approaches to text, sound, and notation can reveal patterns of circulation, influence, and institutional infrastructure across regions and languages. The chapter also addresses methodological risks—uneven data availability, bias in digitized corpora, and the danger of treating computational outputs as self-evident. It argues for workflows that keep interpretation central, foreground documentation and provenance, and build ethical collaboration into data collection—especially when working with marginalized or Indigenous materials.