Musikvidenskab

Musikvidenskab, commonly referred to as musicology in Danish contexts, is the scholarly study of music as sound, practice, and cultural artifact. It applies methods from the humanities and social sciences to analyze music in historical and contemporary settings, exploring how musical works are created, transmitted, performed, and understood within communities and institutions.

Historisk musikvidenskab (historical musicology) investigates music from past eras through sources such as manuscripts, prints, letters, and archival material; it covers edition, performance practice, and reception history. Systematisk musikvidenskab (systematic musicology) treats music as a scientific phenomenon, including acoustics, psychoacoustics, cognition, perception, and the physiology of listening. Ethnomusikvidenskab (ethnomusicology) emphasizes fieldwork and cross-cultural study of music in social contexts. Music theory and analyse (music theory and analysis) examines musical structure and form. Sociomusikvidenskab and related approaches study music in society, including identity, politics, media, and policy. Computational and digital musicology uses data analysis, corpus studies, and music informatics to study large-scale musical material.

Methods and sources in musikvidenskab include score study, archival research, field recordings, interviews, ethnography, and experimental or computational analyses. Materials may comprise scores, manuscripts, recordings, broadcasts, and online media. Researchers often combine qualitative and quantitative methods to address questions about meaning, reception, and cultural production.

Education and career in musikvidenskab typically occur at universities and research institutes, with degrees from bachelor’s to doctoral levels. Graduates work in academia, libraries and archives, museums, arts organizations, publishing, and music technology. The field engages with a wide range of musics, beyond Western classical traditions, to understand music’s roles in culture and human experience.