Neither “Big” Nor “Data”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter begins to sketch some potential upshots of a more regularized dialogue between music scholarship and critical data studies. Following a discussion of key terminological and methodological insights from critical data studies, it explores their ramifications for music scholars through a case study, analyzing several Web-accessible databases implemented to facilitate computational work with medieval European musics. The chapter concludes by leveraging the surprising role that music has to play in one publication associated with critical data studies to suggest how scholars of music might stand to make significant contributions to this rapidly developing field.