top schools for music history?

im thinking about majoring In music history in college because of my love of music. I have a guitar keyboard and trombone. I can play two of them. Contemporary music especially interests me. The history part because I am always chronicling stuff I read or stuff I hear on the news. So does anyone on the music board have any idea of good schools for music history? Thanks.

Comprehensive music history courses are part of the undergraduate music major curriculum and and some schools also offer electives. Many schools of music only offer music history/musicology as a major at the graduate level.

So that raises the question of what my undergrad major should be. would double majoring in music and anthropology be a good idea? Because im debating if I would enjoy being a music professor or an anthropology professor better. And one last thought. im not really into a performance based program. I can play enough to get me through a less competitive audition but studying to be a professional musician is not my goal. have a nice day.

You don’t have to play an instrument to major in music. However, a music major will need to study theory and aural skills, with some piano. Most college BA programs won’t have an audition for admittance but will have some sort of placement test when you are actually there. Extracurricular music organizations have auditions in the fall as well.

If you like both music and anthropology, you will like ethnomusicology. Perhaps you can do a lot of work in that area.

You can enter college as an undecided, take classes in both music and anthropology, and decide on a major after the first year or two. Some schools allow individualized majors that might include courses from both areas, or you could double major, major/minor, or just take classes of interest.

You will be fine. The only question I have is about your focus on “contemporary music.” If you don’t want to do a classical program, then you might want to look into particular schools. People use “contemporary” to mean lots of different things so maybe you could clarify.