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 (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 (organology), 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.
Famous musicologists include John Sullivan Dwight, Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, and Ludwig Nohl. John Sullivan Dwight was best known for founding Dwight's Journal of Music, expanding the works of Beethoven to the American public, and writing the lyrics of O Holy Night into English. Ludwig Ritter von Köchel was best known for developing the Köchel catalogue, which categorized all of Mozart's works in chronological order. Ludwig Nohl was best known for discovering and publishing one of Beethoven's most famous pieces Für Elise. Nohl was one of the most famous musicologists in Europe during the 1800s and published biographies on Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner.
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