"The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term 'music theory.'"
This subfield explores the fundamental principles and concepts of ancient music, including melody, rhythm, harmony, and notation.
Pitch: The musical note or tone and its relationship to other notes.
Harmony: The study of how musical pitches work together to create chords and the relationships between these chords.
Rhythm: The study of the arrangement of sounds and silence in time.
Scales: The organization of pitches placed in a sequence, in terms of height, using pitch classes.
Modes: The various scales and tunings used to build melodies and harmonies in ancient music.
Notation: The system used to represent musical sound, providing a standard way to write music down.
Meter: The organization of beats in time, which establishes the feeling of strong and weak beats.
Tonality: The organization of pitches into a particular key, which determines the emotional content of a song.
Melody: The succession of musical tones that comprise a musical phrase or composition.
Texture: The relationship between the different sounds in a musical composition.
Form: The structure, organization, and coherence of a musical composition.
Performance practice: The study of how performances are put together and how music is performed in ancient times.
Pythagorean tuning: This theory is based on the mathematical principles of Pythagoras and aims to tune musical instruments according to geometric patterns.
Aristoxenian theory: Developed by the Greek philosopher Aristoxenus, this theory focuses on the structure of musical scales and tonalities.
Helmholtzian theory: This theory, named after the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, analyzes the physics of sound and the human perception of it.
Ancient Greek music theory: This is a broad category that encompasses various philosophies and theories developed in ancient Greece, such as Pythagorean tuning and Aristoxenian theory.
Indian music theory: India has a rich tradition of music theory, with various systems developed over centuries. Some of these systems include the Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions.
Chinese music theory: Like India, China also has a long history of music theory. Some of the major systems include the Yinyue or Imperial court music tradition and the Jingju or Beijing opera tradition.
Arab music theory: This music theory has been developed over centuries in the Arab world and is expressed through a unique system of maqamat (musical modes).
Medieval music theory: This theory developed during the Middle Ages in Europe, particularly in the monasteries. It includes concepts such as the Gregorian chant and is often associated with religious music.
Renaissance music theory: This theory developed during the Renaissance period in Europe and was characterized by an increased interest in polyphony and harmony.
Baroque music theory: Developed during the Baroque era, this theory was characterized by more complex forms of music, such as fugues and concertos.
"The first is the 'rudiments', that are needed to understand music notation; the second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology that 'seeks to define processes and general principles in music'."
"The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis 'in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built.'"
"Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics."
"A more inclusive definition could be the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence."
"The study of 'music' in the Quadrivium liberal arts university curriculum... was an abstract system of proportions."
"Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts that composers and other musicians use in creating and performing music."
"The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments, and other artifacts."
"Ancient instruments from prehistoric sites around the world reveal details about the music they produced and potentially something of the musical theory that might have been used by their makers."
"Practical and scholarly traditions overlap, as many practical treatises about music place themselves within a tradition of other treatises, which are cited regularly just as scholarly writing cites earlier research."
"Etymologically, music theory is an act of contemplation of music, from the Greek word θεωρία, meaning a looking at, a viewing; a contemplation, speculation, theory; a sight, a spectacle."
"Music theory, as such, is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales, consonance and dissonance, and rhythmic relationships."
"There is also a body of theory concerning practical aspects, such as the creation or the performance of music, orchestration, ornamentation, improvisation, and electronic sound production."
"University study, typically to the MA or PhD level, is required to teach as a tenure-track music theorist in a US or Canadian university."
"Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by western music notation."
"Comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used."
"Music theory textbooks... often include elements of musical acoustics, considerations of musical notation, and techniques of tonal composition (harmony and counterpoint), among other topics."