Musicology is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some music research is scientific in focus (psychological, sociological, acoustical, neurological, computational). A scholar who participates in musical research is a musicologist. Musicology traditionally is divided in three main branches: historical musicology, systematic musicology and ethnomusicology.
Historical musicologists mostly study the history of the so-called Western classical tradition, though the study of music history need not be limited to that. Ethnomusicologists draw from anthropology (particularly field research) 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.
See also: Organology
Blogs
PODCAST
Websites
YouTube
- British Library’s Philatelic Collections: From Music to Meme
- Conversations with Philatelists: Episode 60 – Pat Simmons of the Doobie Brothers
- Exploring Stamps: Season 2/Ep.11 – Jazz Icon Ella Fitzgerald
- HRT3 Stamp Chats: Rock and Roll On Stamps
- Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Stamp Stories – Hip Hop
- Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Stamp Stories – Mariachi
- The Stamp Channel: Episode 4 – Beethoven
