Ecomusicology is an area of study that explores the relationships between music or sound, and the natural environment. It is a study which encompasses a variety of academic disciplines including musicology, biology, ecology and anthropology. Ecomusicology combines these disciplines to explore how sound is produced by natural environments and, more broadly how cultural values and concerns about nature are expressed through sonic mediums. Ecomusicology explores the ways that music is composed to replicate natural imagery, as well as how sounds produced within the natural environment are used within musical composition. Ecological studies of sounds produced by animals within their habitat are also considered to be part of the field of ecomusicology. In the 21st century, studies within the field the ecomusicology have also become increasingly interested in the sustainability of music production and performance.

Ecomusicology is concerned with the study of music, culture, and nature, and considers musical and sonic issues, both textual and performative, related to ecology and the natural environment. It is in essence a mixture of ecocriticism and musicology (rather than "ecology" and "musicology"), in Charles Seeger's holistic definition. Ecomusicology is regarded as a field of research rather than a specific academic discipline. Because ecomusicology focuses on a vast variety of disciplines as well as areas of research, it can be imagined as a space in which studies of sound in relation with the environment are conducted.

Ecomusicology's relevance to such a wide range of other research areas is exactly what makes it somewhat ambiguous to define. On one hand, ecomusicology is a unique field of research which helps to make connections between a variety of music-related and environmental studies. Yet, by functioning as a collective term, it is often difficult to frame ecomusicology within a static set of descriptive definitions. Musicologist Aaron S. Allen, the author of multiple published works on ecomusicology, defines ecomusicology as "the study of music, culture, and nature in all the complexities of those terms. Ecomusicology considers musical and sonic issues, both textual and performative, related to ecology and the natural environment."

Ecomusicology as a field of study is often traced back to musical composer and environmentalist R. Murray Schafer who used the term to explain the sonic nature of particular physical environments or soundscapes. The idea of sound or music as something which creates or captures a particular atmosphere, was initially professed by Murray R. Schafer through his development of the concept of soundscape ecology in the late 1970s. Schafer used this term to encompass the vast acoustic environment which constitutes all the varied sounds, audible to the human ear. A soundscape might entail for example, the all audible sounds heard within a specific area of land, such as a mountain range, a forest or field.

From the 1970s, there has been an increase in interest in the term ecomusicology, which was established as a term in the early 21st century in North American and Scandinavian circles. As a field, ecomusicology was created out of a common area of interest between the fields of ecocriticism and musicology, expressed by a range of scholars and artists such as composers, acoustic ecologists, ethnomusicologists, biomusicologists, and others.

Ecomusicology embraces what is today considered the field of historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and related interdisciplinary fields, which while at the same time may enable specialists within each of these fields to interact with academics in the other fields in their approach, it also provides individuals with flexibility to approach an ecocritical study of music through a variety of disciplines and fields.

In 2011, the Society for Ethnomusicology established an Ecomusicology Special Interest Group (ESIG).

In October 2012, the first international ecomusicology-conference took place in New Orleans, U.S.