Musicology
Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, formal sciences and computer science.
Musicology is traditionally divided into three branches: music history, systematic musicology, and ethnomusicology. Historical musicologists study the history of musical traditions, the origins of works, and the biographies of composers. Ethnomusicologists draw from anthropology to understand how and why people make music. Systematic musicology includes music theory, aesthetics, pedagogy, musical acoustics, the science and technology of musical instruments, and the musical implications of physiology, psychology, sociology, philosophy and computing. Cognitive musicology is the set of phenomena surrounding the cognitive modeling of music. When musicologists carry out research using computers, their research often falls under the field of computational musicology. Music therapy is a specialized form of applied musicology which is sometimes considered more closely affiliated with health fields, and other times regarded as part of musicology proper.
Background
The word musicology comes from Greek μουσική 'music' and -λογια, 'domain of study'.The 19th-century philosophical trends that led to the re-establishment of formal musicology education in German and Austrian universities had combined methods of systematization with evolution. These models were established not only in the field of physical anthropology, but also cultural anthropology. This was influenced by Hegel's ideas on ordering "phenomena" which can be understood & distinguished from simple to complex stages of evolution. They are further classified into primitive & developed sections; whereas the particular stages of history are understood & distinguished as ancient to modern. Comparative methods became more widespread in musicology beginning around 1880.
Parent disciplines
The parent disciplines of musicology include:- General history
- Cultural studies
- Philosophy
- Ethnology and cultural anthropology
- Archaeology and prehistory
- Psychology and sociology
- Physiology and neuroscience
- Acoustics and psychoacoustics
- Information sciences and mathematics
Subdisciplines
Historical musicology
or historical musicology is concerned with the composition, performance, reception and criticism of music over time. Historical studies of music are for example concerned with a composer's life and works, the developments of styles and genres, the social function of music for a particular group of people,, or modes of performance at a particular place and time. Like the comparable field of art history, different branches and schools of historical musicology emphasize different types of musical works and approaches to music. There are also national differences in various definitions of historical musicology. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music, such as the music of India or rock music. In practice, these research topics are more often considered within ethnomusicology and "historical musicology" is typically assumed to imply Western Art music of the European tradition.The methods of historical musicology include source studies, palaeography, philology, style criticism, historiography, musical analysis and iconography. The application of musical analysis to further these goals is often a part of music history, though pure analysis or the development of new tools of music analysis is more likely to be seen in the field of music theory. Music historians create a number of written products, ranging from journal articles describing their current research, new editions of musical works, biographies of composers and other musicians, book-length studies or university textbook chapters or entire textbooks. Music historians may examine issues in a close focus, as in the case of scholars who examine the relationship between words and music for a given composer's art songs. On the other hand, some scholars take a broader view and assess the place of a given type of music, such as the symphony in society using techniques drawn from other fields, such as economics, sociology or philosophy.
New musicology
New musicology is a term applied since the late 1980s to a wide body of work emphasizing cultural study, analysis and criticism of music. Such work may be based on feminist, gender studies, queer theory or postcolonial theory, or the work of Theodor W. Adorno. Although New Musicology emerged from within historical musicology, the emphasis on cultural study within the Western art music tradition places New Musicology at the junction between historical, ethnological and sociological research in music.New musicology was a reaction against traditional historical musicology, which according to Susan McClary, "fastidiously declares issues of musical signification off-limits to those engaged in legitimate scholarship." Charles Rosen, however, retorts that McClary, "sets up, like so many of the 'new musicologists', a straw man to knock down, the dogma that music has no meaning, and no political or social significance." Today, many musicologists no longer distinguish between musicology and new musicology since it has been recognized that many of the scholarly concerns once associated with new musicology already were mainstream in musicology, so that the term "new" no longer applies.
Ethnomusicology
, formerly comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context. It is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd Titon has called it the study of "people making music". Although it is most often concerned with the study of non-Western music, it also includes the study of Western music from an anthropological or sociological perspective, cultural studies and sociology as well as other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Some ethnomusicologists primarily conduct historical studies, but the majority are involved in long-term participant observation or combine ethnographic, musicological, and historical approaches in their fieldwork. Therefore, ethnomusicological scholarship can be characterized as featuring a substantial, intensive fieldwork component, often involving long-term residence within the community studied. Closely related to ethnomusicology is the emerging branch of sociomusicology. For instance, Ko proposed the hypothesis of "Biliterate and Trimusical" in Hong Kong sociomusicology.Popular music studies
Popular music studies, known, "misleadingly", as popular musicology, emerged in the 1980s as an increasing number of musicologists, ethnomusicologists and other varieties of historians of American and European culture began to write about popular music past and present. The first journal focusing on popular music studies was Popular Music which began publication in 1981. The same year an academic society solely devoted to the topic was formed, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. The association's founding was partly motivated by the interdisciplinary agenda of popular musicology though the group has been characterized by a polarized 'musicological' and 'sociological' approach also typical of popular musicology.Music theory, analysis and composition
Music theory is a field of study that describes the elements of music and includes the development and application of methods for composing and for analyzing music through both notation and, on occasion, musical sound itself. Broadly, theory may include any statement, belief or conception of or about music. A person who studies or practices music theory is a music theorist.Some music theorists attempt to explain the techniques composers use by establishing rules and patterns. Others model the experience of listening to or performing music. Though extremely diverse in their interests and commitments, many Western music theorists are united in their belief that the acts of composing, performing and listening to music may be explicated to a high degree of detail. Generally, works of music theory are both descriptive and prescriptive, attempting both to define practice and to influence later practice.
Musicians study music theory to understand the structural relationships in the music. Composers study music theory to understand how to produce effects and structure their own works. Composers may study music theory to guide their precompositional and compositional decisions. Broadly speaking, music theory in the Western tradition focuses on harmony and counterpoint, and then uses these to explain large scale structure and the creation of melody.