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Donate The word musicology literally means “the study of music.” It encompasses all aspects of music and sound in all cultures, places, and historical periods. In practice, musicology includes a wide variety of methods of studying music as a scholarly endeavor, including music history, music analysis, ethnomusicology, music theory and much, much more. Although the study of music performance is an important facet of musicology, music performance itself is a different area of study. Modern musicology began in the 19th century when scholars in German and Austrian universities, building on trends inspired and encouraged by contemporary composers, began to formalize the study of music as a branch of the humanities. This new academic speciality was focused on studying long-established traditions of musical notation, compositional technique, and performance practice, as well as the varied social and cultural impacts of music. Musicology moved to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was fully formalized with the founding of the American Musicological Society (AMS) in New York City in 1934. The AMS is the world’s largest and oldest continuously-run organization devoted to music studies.
Topic Areas
Musicology embraces the many different ways of studying music:
- as part of history (analogous to art history), organized by:
- chronological era or period (“the Renaissance”)
- nation or region (American music, South Asian music) musical style (“art music,” “popular music”)
- the people involved (composers, performers, audiences) the performance forces involved (symphony orchestra, soloists)
- as part of society (sociology or anthropology of music)
- with respect to its structure (music theory, music analysis)
- with respect to how it functions as art (music aesthetics, philosophy of music)
- with respect to how it is perceived (music perception and cognition)
- with respect to the means of performance (the study of musical instruments, acoustics, physiology of voice)
Within these broad categories of inquiry there is almost infinite variety of area and interest depending on what genre of music is being studied, what time period, or what aspect of composition, performance or social utility.
The primary employment sector of musicologists is higher education. However, musicologists or individuals with training in musicology are employed in a variety of fields including music administration (managing educational and performance programs), K-12 music education (teaching music history and theory), and archival and cultural professionals (running archives, museums and historical societies). Increasingly, musicologists or individuals with training in musicology are employed in “public musicology” or work that involves sharing knowledge about music with a wider public of musicians, music enthusiasts, and others interested in better understanding the place of music in history and society.
Our Programs
Academic musicologists do research and prepare critical and performance editions of musical texts, and teach or guide doctoral research on many aspects of the history of music at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Musicological research is typically summarized and explained in academic articles in journals like the Society’s Journal of the American Musicological Society. It is also presented in scholarly and pedagogical published books on a wide array of musical topics.
The AMS provides financial and other resources to support many aspects of musicological work, including study and research, book and journal publication, and recording and performance support. To get a better sense of the kinds of subjects musicologists work with:
- Browse our list of recent books in music studies
- Look at a recent program from the AMS Annual Meeting (an important venue for recent research in musicology)
- Browse our list of active Study Groups, which are topic-based interest groups for music studies professionals
- Check out Musicology Now, our online scholarly magazing that highlights current topics and issues of contemporary scholarly interest