Data Scraping YouTube for the Study of Lieder Reception

A growing body of literature has shifted aesthetic attention from composition to performance, or the performing activity, and asserts that act performance creates meaning. 1 Scholars have emphasized differences between passive consumption active making – even listening music. 2 As I sought understand impact on Alma Mahler's legacy, identified need gather as much data possible who, what, where, when, why, how her songs were performed. This led me evaluate metadata associated with recordings in WorldCat union catalogue video sharing platform YouTube. Recent studies shown utility leveraging big for musicology, although few scholars done so investigate reception history. essay outlines one approach scraping YouTube emphasis value those researching recent Lieder reception, doing highlights some promise limitations web scraping.