Music history is the study of the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time. Such studies of music are concerned with a composer's life and works, the developments of styles and genres, the social function of music for a particular group of people, or the modes of performance at a particular place and time. The methods of music history include source studies (esp. manuscript studies), paleography, philology (especially textual criticism), style criticism, historiography (the choice of historical method), musical analysis, and iconography. The application of musical analysis to further these goals is often a part of music history, though pure analysis or the development of new tools of music analysis is more likely to be seen in the field of music theory.
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