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Music · Encyclopedia

Music as an applied-and-academic discipline covers the practice and study of music across performance, composition, music theory, musicology, ethnomusicology, music education, music technology and music industry. The discipline operates institutionally through dedicated music conservatoires and music departments at universities, plus the substantial professional-music industry training-and-employment infrastructure. The global music industry generated approximately USD 30 billion in recorded-music revenue plus USD 25-30 billion in live-music revenue as of 2024, with substantial post-2015 streaming-platform restructuring of recorded-music economics.\n\nThe global music-conservatoire-and-academic-music institutional landscape includes both elite conservatoires and university music departments. Conservatoires: the Juilliard School New York (the principal US music conservatory, founded 1905), the Curtis Institute of Music Philadelphia (the substantial-tuition-free elite conservatory), the New England Conservatory Boston, the Manhattan School of Music, the Royal Academy of Music London, the Royal College of Music London, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire, the Conservatoire de Paris, the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Sibelius Academy Helsinki (Nordic music-tradition institution), the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, the Tokyo University of the Arts. Major university music departments: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, Penn, Chicago, NYU, plus the substantial Cambridge-and-Oxford music departments.\n\nIndia's music-education-and-performance infrastructure has structural distinctness through the parallel classical-music traditions — Hindustani classical (the north-Indian classical tradition with the gharana-system across major cities — Gwalior, Kirana, Maihar, Patiala, Jaipur-Atrauli, Indore, Agra, Mewati, Bhendibazaar, Banaras, Sham Chaurasi gharanas across vocal traditions plus the parallel instrumental-tradition lineages) and Carnatic classical (the south-Indian classical tradition with the Madras-and-broader-Tamil-region performer-concentration). The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognises Hindustani plus Carnatic classical music traditions. The major Indian music institutions: Sangeet Research Academy Calcutta (founded 1977), the music programs at major Indian universities (BHU Faculty of Performing Arts, Delhi University Faculty of Music, MS University Baroda, Bhatkhande Sangeet Vidyapith Lucknow, Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya Khairagarh — the only Indian university dedicated to music). The substantial post-2010 Indian-popular-music-industry expansion through major film-music composers (AR Rahman, Pritam, Vishal-Shekhar, Amit Trivedi, the substantial post-2018 Bollywood film-music-composer-and-singer ecosystem) plus the substantial post-2020 Indian-streaming-music expansion through Spotify India (launched 2019), JioSaavn, Gaana, Apple Music India.\n\nThe applied music professional practice covers performance careers (orchestral, chamber-music, soloist, jazz-and-popular-music performers, the substantial film-music-and-game-music composer-and-performer ecosystem), composition (concert-music composition for performances by orchestras and ensembles, film-and-game scoring, popular-music songwriting, electronic-and-experimental-music composition), recording-and-production (studio engineering, mixing, mastering, music production for the popular-music-and-film-music industry), music education at all levels, music therapy (the structured clinical-music-therapy specialty), music journalism and criticism, music administration (orchestra and ensemble management, festival programming, record-label-and-streaming-platform A&R), music technology (the substantial post-2010 expansion of music-tech through software-instrument and DAW companies — Ableton, Native Instruments, the broader music-software ecosystem; the substantial post-2020 AI-music-generation-and-mastering tools).\n\nFor a globally-mobile musician, professional careers are structurally cross-border. The major orchestras and ensembles recruit internationally; the conservatory-and-academic-music network operates substantially-cross-jurisdictionally; the popular-music industry operates with substantial cross-border-touring-and-collaboration patterns.\n\nCross-references: music intersects with academy-arts-design, human-root-dance (performance-arts overlap), human-root-theatre (musical-theatre overlap), neglect-root-film (film-music overlap), neglect-root-game-design (game-music overlap), lifestyle-culture, plus the broader entertainment-industry ecosystem.