Scholarly study of music as an aspect of culture.
Taking an anthropological approach (it was originally called "comparative musicology"), it has tended to focus on non-Western music, particularly music of oral traditions. The field's origins lie in the late 19th century with the work of scholars such as François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871) and Carl Stumpf (1848–1936). Much work was motivated by the search for musical universals, under the assumption that prehistory could be studied through research into "primitive" cultures of the present. Recognizing that traditional societies were quickly disappearing with the modern world's encroachment, ethnomusicologists soon put their highest priority on collection (by field recording, using the new recording technology) and transcription (using newly devised pitch calibrations). A number of classification schemes for comparative analysis of different musics have been proposed, but the natural focus remains on diversity.