Musicology is a systematic study of music in all of its forms of appearance. Musicology exists as an academic discipline that studies primarily composed and notated music, and is taught in universities across the world.

Musicology, as a discrete field of study, has its origins in an article by Guido Adler published in 1883 in Germany. It set out a manifesto for the systematic and analytic study of music, and many of the points and methods outlined by him continue to be the modus operandi for musicologists worldwide.

One prominent discipline which grew out of traditional musicology is ethnomusicology, or the study of music as culture. Whereas musicology tends to study works of music that are notated on scores, the individuals and history that created such works, ethnomusicology studies the music of the world, as an act of cultural expression.

Another offshoot discipline is popular music studies, which takes conventional musicology methods and applies them to modern popular music. Popular music studies also borrows methods from other academic disciplines such as critical theory, feminist discourses, and gender and media studies.