The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology

Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology brings together academics, artist-researchers, and practitioners to provide readers with an extensive and authoritative overview of applied musicology. Once a field that addressed music’s socio-political or performative contexts, applied musicology today encompasses study and practice in areas as diverse as psychology, ecomusicology, organology, forensic musicology, music therapy, health and well-being, and other public-oriented musicologies. These rapid advances have created a fast-changing field whose scholarship and activities tend to take place in isolation from each other. This volume addresses that shortcoming, bringing together a wide-ranging survey of current approaches. Featuring 39 authors, The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology falls into five parts—Defining and Theorising Applied Musicology; Public Engagement; New Approaches and Research Methods; Representation and Inclusion; and Musicology in/for Performance—that chronicle the subject’s rich history and consider the connections that will characterise its future. The book offers an essential resource for anyone exploring applied musicology.