On order of the Yellow Emperor, Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick and even nodes. The Lüshi chunqiu from about 239 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed. Ĭhinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. See also: Music of China and Chinese musicology 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. Comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by western music notation. 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. A person who researches or teaches music theory is a music theorist. In addition, 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. As such, it is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales, consonance and dissonance, and rhythmic relationships. 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. In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. 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. Many cultures have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises and music notation. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music-making. For example, 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. 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. Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts that composers and other musicians use in creating music. But this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries and is generally included in modern scholarship on the history of music theory. This is not an absolute guideline, however 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. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music, a more inclusive definition could be the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence. Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. 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." ![]() 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 is a sub-topic of musicology that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". ![]() The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ![]() Jubal, Pythagoras and Philolaus engaged in theoretical investigations, in a woodcut from Franchinus Gaffurius, Theorica musicæ (1492)
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