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While musicology contends to be purely about music itself (almost always western classical music), ethnomusicologists are often interested in putting the music they study into a wider cultural context. Ethnomusicology as it emerged in the late 19th century and early 20th century, practiced by people such as Vinko Zganec, Franjo Ksaver , Carl Stumpf, Erich von Hornbostel, Curt Sachs and Alexander J. Ellis, tended to focus on non-European music of an oral tradition, but in more recent years the field has expanded to embrace all musical styles from all parts of the world.

Ethnomusicologists apply theory and methods from cultural anthropology as well as other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. People who have done well known ethnomusicological work have sometimes been previously trained as anthropologists studying many other aspects of a society as well as their music. A well known example of such a study is Colin Turnbull's study of the Mbuti pygmiesGenerally speaking, a pygmy is anything of unusually small size. This can be, for example, an animal (such as the pygmy hippopotamus). In an anthropological context, a Pygmy is specifically a member of one of the hunter-gatherer peoples living in equatori. Another example is Jaime de Angulo , a linguist who ended up learning much about the music of the Indians of Northern California (see [1]). Yet another is Anthony Seeger, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studied the music and society of the Suya people in Mato Grosso, Brazil (see [2]).

Four important centers for ethnomusicological study are the Universities of CaliforniaThe University of California UC is a public university system within the State of California. It has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students and over 1,340,000 living alumni. The first campus was founded in 1868 in the city of Oakland while at Los AngelesThe University of California, Los Angeles popularly known as UCLA is a public, coeducational university situated in the neighborhood of Westwood within the City of Los Angeles. It is the second-oldest campus of the University of California as well as the and Santa BarbaraThe University of California, Santa Barbara UCSB is a coeducational public university located in Santa Barbara County, California. UCSB's campus was annexed by the city of Santa Barbara and thus is technically part of the city, though it is closer in prox; Indiana University, Bloomington, and the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research at University of ZagrebThe University of Zagreb ( Croatian SveuciliSte u Zagrebu is the oldest Croatian university in continuous operation and also the oldest university in southeastern Europe. The university was officially founded September 23 1669 by Emperor and King Leopold, CroatiaThe Republic of Croatia is a country in Europe bordering the Mediterranean, Central Europe and the Balkans. Its capital is Zagreb. In recent history, it was a republic of Yugoslavia. History Main article: History of Croatia The Croats are a largely Slavic.