Almost invariably, the scholarly writings on music during the medieval period were composed at a private commissioner's request. We are told that al-Kind? composed his treatise, al-Ris?lat al-Kubr? f? l-Ta?l?f, for Ahmad ibn al-Mu?ta?im (d.866 CE). From the same period, Ya?y? ibn Ali ibn Ya?y? al-Munajjim's (d. 912 CE) treatise on music is dedicated to the caliph al-Mu?ta?id (d. 902 CE). Al-F?r?b? composed his Kit?b al-M?s?q? l-Kab?r at the request of the Abbasid vizier Abu Ja?far Muhammad ibn Q?sim al-Karkh?, while ?af? al-D?n al-Urmaw? composed his two treatises on music after being commissioned by an unnamed patron (possibly al-??s?, the astronomer (d. 1274 CE), and the Ilkhanid governor of Baghdad, Shams al-D?n al-Juwayn? (d. 1285 CE), respectively. Even encyclopedic works that include a chapter on the science of music, like Qu?b al-D?n al-Sh?r?z?'s Durrat al-T?j, were usually commissioned at a patron's request. The role of these patrons was so important that the final product was occasionally tailored specifically according to their needs and level of knowledge. As evidenced by the names of the patrons listed above, it appears that the intended audience of these treatises, at least at the beginning of the scientific tradition on music, was neither professional musicians nor ordinary people, but rather the Baghdadi elite, who wanted to learn about the science of music in a scholarly manner and had the financial means to commission treatises on the subject. This prompts us to look at these treatises as pedagogical tools, instrumental in learning about musical science. And yet, contemporary scholarship thus far has not dealt with this educational aspect of these treatises, treating them instead as data sets from which to extract information about the practice of music in medieval Islamicate societies. While this approach has been highly influential in shaping our understanding of the medieval period's musical culture as an audible phenomenon, it has neglected the social and intellectual dimensions of the learning of music as a scientific discipline. In this paper, I study learning the science of music among the elite of medieval Baghdad (9th-13th century) by examining the literature on the etiquette of companionship (Adab al-mun?dama) as well as the "mirrors for princes" genre. Further, I elaborate on the mechanisms and social factors that contributed to the fostering of an environment of continued production of literature on the science of music for centuries in the Islamicate world, with a particular focus on Baghdad.