Conclusion

This free course has introduced you to four different approaches to and topics within musicology. Through these, it has raised some interesting questions about what it means to study music. By highlighting the ways in which music intersects with matters such as gender, race and politics, it demonstrates the breadth of questions that musicology can address, the multiplicity of ways in which musical topics can be investigated, and the broader range of ideas and theories that the study of music both draws on and contributes towards. The different examples also draw attention to the wide range of sources that musicologists draw on in their work and the range of musical contexts that can present opportunities for musicological enquiry, from composers and songwriters whose music is performed on the stages of concerts halls, clubs and at festivals to the everyday sounds encountered in your own locality.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course A890 MA Music part 1 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .