All technical and stylistic changes of music through the ages, reflect the changing outlook of man and the changing human society. Therefore, writing about music and its study reveals the changing attitudes to music. The word, history denotes that past events, considered in their chronological order or a record of past events. Music history has distinguishing characteristics of this as defined above with the limitation that its subject matter is confined to musical events and other events, as far as they affect musical ones or are affected by them. A historian's chief concern lies mainly on reconstruction of an accurate record of human activities and on achievement of a more profound understanding of them. For this purpose, a historian has to subject his sources to a whole series of preliminary investigations. First, he has to determine whether the sources are appropriate and adequate for the particular task in hand. Secondly, he must make sure that he fully understands what he has selected. Finally, he must try to synthesize his materials. The scientific approach to the historiography began only from the late 18th century. Before that period, the historiography was more appropriately the function of religion, of philosophy, and of literature. Historiography of the 18th century was largely inspired by the progress in the natural sciences and based on formulating the general rules governing the development of human societies. The chief features of the new historiography were a sense of the unity of all human history including non-European countries; a capacity for research about the salient features of particular periods; and preference for topics connected with the progress of human civilization. But the historiography of this period was rarely connected with universities. The continuous study of history could be developed only from the 19th century and the historical writing could be done by professional historians. Historiography eventually became a continually cooperative venture where the achievements of the previous historians could be used systematically by their successors.