Musicology

:For the album by Prince, see Musicology (album).

What is music?

:Main article: definitions of music.

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Quid est musica? What is music? is the first and historical question of musicology. Through it, we can find the three sub disciplines of present musicology.

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1. What is music? What structures of sound can we call music? How have the ideas and practices of music developed in different cultures and ages? Which pieces and systems of music can we form a body of knowledge from, because they have survived in notated, recorded or remembered form? These questions lead to the study of music history.

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2. What is music? What is possible to know about the internal logic and functioning of this we call music? How shall we describe it? Notate it? Analyze it? What ideas and systems of meaning have been associated with music in different cultures and ages? These questions lead to the study of music theory (see also below).

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3. What is music? What is it doing in the human world? How it is used? These questions about the place of music in society, leads to the study of ethnomusicology (see also below).

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