# Musicologist



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

In science it is possible for one scientist to spend their entire career studying one species of plant. Is this the same in musicology? Does a musicologist spend his or her entire* career studying the works of Clementi or Cage or Haydn's symphonies? 

*(I realise they would probably do this around teaching)


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Depends on the composer and the genus. Haydn, sure. A large genus of plants rather then an individual species, sure.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The field of musicology has a few large subdivisions: historical musicology, systematic musicology, ethnomusicology. In the U.S., those the rest of the world tends to describe as systematic musicologists are called theorists and the term musicologist tends to be reserved for historians and ethnomusicologists. 

Some musicologists specialize in individual composers, especially in the case of major figures like Beethoven, Haydn, etc. Others focus on music of a particular culture or country, others on a type of music or genre across countries and time periods, like the motet from 1300 to 1600 or the sonata from its inception to 1900. Some deal extensively with aesthetic issues, the history of aesthetics, the history of theory, or gender issues. So the answer is: Musicologists can and do specialize in just about every way imaginable.


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