"The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term 'music theory.'"
The study of vocal and instrumental music, theory, composition, and performance.
Music Theory: The study of the elements and principles of music, such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and form.
Ear Training: The process of developing one's ability to perceive, identify, and reproduce musical sounds.
Instrumentation: The study of the characteristics and capabilities of various musical instruments.
Music History: The study of the development of music over time, including different styles and movements.
Performance Techniques: The study of specific techniques for playing various musical instruments or singing.
Composition: The process of creating musical works, including melody, harmony, rhythm, and form.
Music Production: The process of recording, mixing, and mastering musical works.
Music Business: The study of the business aspects of the music industry, including marketing, distribution, and copyright.
Music Therapy: The use of music to improve mental and physical health, and to aid in therapeutic communication.
Musical Notation: The system of writing down music using symbols and markings to indicate pitch, rhythm, and dynamics.
Classical: Music written in the Western tradition of art music, typically including symphonies, chamber music, and operas.
Jazz: Characterized by improvisation, swing rhythms, and syncopated melodies, originating in African-American communities in the southern United States.
Rock: A genre of popular music that originated in the 1950s, characterized by a strong beat, electric guitars, and choruses.
Blues: A genre of African-American music that originated in the southern United States, characterized by a 12-bar structure, lyrics about hardship and struggle, and often featuring a solo instrument such as a guitar or harmonica.
Pop: A genre of popular music that originated in the mid-1950s, characterized by catchy melodies, simple chord progressions, and a focus on vocal performance.
Hip-Hop: A genre of music characterized by rap and beats, originated in African-American and Latin-American communities in the Bronx and Harlem in the 1970s.
Country: A genre of popular music originating in the southern United States, characterized by its use of acoustic guitar, fiddle, and storytelling lyrics.
Electronic: A genre of music that relies heavily on electronic instruments, synthesisers, and computers to create a wide range of sounds and textures.
Reggae: A genre of music originating in Jamaica in the 1960s, characterized by the use of off-beat rhythms, heavy basslines, and lyrics about social and political issues.
World music: A term used to describe all kinds of music that do not fit into the Western pop, rock, or classical categories, typically incorporating traditional music from different cultures and often featuring unique instruments and sounds.
"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."