theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (key signatures, time signatures, and rhythmic notation); the second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third 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."[1]


Iubal, Pythagoras and Philolaus engaged in theoretical investigations, in a woodcut from Franchinus Gaffurius, Theorica musicæ (1492).
Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music (see Definition of music), a more inclusive definition could be that music theory is the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence, as they relate to music. This is not an absolute guideline; for example, the study of "music" in the Quadrivium liberal arts university curriculum that was common in medieval Europe was an abstract system of proportions that was carefully studied at a distance from actual musical practice.[2] However, this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries, and it is generally included in modern scholarship on the history of music theory.[3]

Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts composers and other musicians use in creating 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. For example, ancient instruments from Mesopotamia, China,[4] and 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 (see History of music and Musical instrument). In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are clearly visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music making. Many cultures, at least as far back as ancient Mesopotamia and ancient China, have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises and music notation. 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.

In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. Etymologically, music theory is an act of contemplation of music, from the Greek θεωρία, a looking at, viewing, contemplation, speculation, theory, also a sight, a spectacle.[5] As such, it is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales, consonance and dissonance, and rhythmic relationships, but 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.[6] A person who researches, teaches, or writes articles about music theory is a music theorist. 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, especially in the United States of America, often include elements of musical acoustics, considerations of musical notation, and techniques of tonal composition (harmony and counterpoint), among other topics.

History Edit
Prehistory Edit
Main article: Prehistoric music
Preserved prehistoric instruments, artifacts, and later depictions of performance in artworks can give clues to the structure of pitch systems in prehistoric cultures. See for instance Paleolithic flutes, Gǔdí, and Anasazi flute.

Antiquity Edit
Mesopotamia Edit
See also: Music of Mesopotamia
Several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of a theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings.[7] The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these texts dates from before 1500 BCE, a millennium earlier than surviving evidence from any other culture of comparable musical thought. Further, "All the Mesopotamian texts [about music] are united by the use of a terminology for music that, according to the approximate dating of the texts, was in use for over 1,000 years."[8]

China Edit
See also: Music of China and Chinese musicology
Much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear.[9]

The earliest texts about Chinese music theory are inscribed on the stone and bronze bells excavated in 1978 from the tomb of Marquis Yi (died 433 BCE) of the Zeng state. They include more than 2800 words describing theories and practices of music pitches of the time. The bells produce two intertwined pentatonic scales three tones apart with additional pitches completing the chromatic scale.[10]

Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed. The Lüshi chunqiu from about 239 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun. On order of the Yellow Emperor, Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick and even nodes. Blowing on one of these like a pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong, the "Yellow Bell." He then heard phoenixes singing. The male and female phoenix each sang six tones. Ling Lun cut his bamboo pipes to match the pitches of the phoenixes, producing twelve pitch pipes in two sets: six from the male phoenix and six from the female: these were called the lülü or later the shierlü.[11]

The lülü formed the ritual scale to which many instruments were tuned. The name of the lowest sound, huangzhong also implied 'musical correctness.' Its pitch formed a pitch standard, setting the base pitch of zithers, flutes and singers of imperial court orchestras. Straight-walled pitch pipes without finger holes were made of cast metal, their lengths specified by court regulations.[12] The resulting chromatic scale provided twelve fundamental notes for the construction of the musical scales themselves. The lülü also has a cosmological value: its notes describe the energetic frequency of the twelve months of the year, the daily rhythm of the twelve bi-hours of the Chinese clock, the twelve main acupuncture meridians, etc