Charles Seeger has made us seen how the study of musicology can fit into a large inquiry of human to the world, with all other disciplines of study, from natural sciences to humanities. This is an exciting picture, making musicology worthwhile.
I'm thinking about a different picture though, probably making me more exciting about musicology. Think about the cosmology, theoretical physicist, astronomer, the picture of universe, whether there is a beginning and an end of the universe, etc. All these being said, we could not even start to answer the question behind: why and how are things the way they are in the universe? Scientists often refer to God in this situation, how God has intended it, whether God plays dice, they say.
To me, the most mysterious thing is that our human world is already too rich for us to catch up, to understand. There are so many many many things going on in this world on earth, that one cannot even try to catch a big part of it. Meanwhile, our human world is nothing compared to the universe, both in the amount of time and space. Our existence means and matters nothing to other parts of the universe. We thought our small world is everything, but the it is nothing.
The wonderfulness about our world, compared to that of universe, is not dumb at all though. If the God designed the universe according to the laws, the laws of our human world is equally rich. Every natural biological device seems to be the most elaborate design. Why are they the way they are? Why do we human all have language and music, and they become so rich and complex, that we have to undertake a whole discipline over a long span of time to try to understand it? (Do we begin to?)
If there is God designed the vast universe, why would he care about our tiny world? Why would he bother to set these elaborate laws for something smaller than a H2O molecule in the whole body of ocean that covers the earth? What are those laws? How are they linked to the universe?
It also would be interesting to ask that, if God bothered to set up the laws for our world on earth, might he as well set up them for some other planets? How are the laws different? Does God himself care what we are thinking about these laws, trying to figure out them?
If we set out to answer any of these questions, we find ourselves doing things such as musicology and linguistics. These laws are not studied by natural sciences, yet they are less closely linked to the laws of the universe as it does for the laws of the earth, but that makes them more mysterious. If the earth as a planet and the universe shares some common laws as God created them, why did he create the laws of language and music for human? Many of these laws were not even realized to be existing until recently. Thus, everyone studying music and language, among other humanities/social sciences, are trying to figure out these laws. One day we might try to set foot into the next step to understand the creation of these laws.
Study of musicology is a noble and holy task.
