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List of music theorists. Left to right, from top left: Ptolemy (after 83 – 161); Al-Farabi (872–950); Safi al-Din al-Urmawi ( c. 1216 – 1294); Nicola Vicentino (1511–1575/76); Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) Music theory has existed since the advent of writing in ancient times.
In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. Music theory is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales, consonance and dissonance, and rhythmic relationships. In addition, there is also a body of theory concerning practical aspects ...
"But that music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by the few, and that it alone among all language unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable—these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge."
Music psychology is a field of research with practical relevance for many areas, including music performance, composition, education, criticism, and therapy, as well as investigations of human attitude, skill, performance, intelligence, creativity, and social behavior . Music psychology can shed light on non-psychological aspects of musicology ...
Music theory analyzes the pitch, timing, and structure of music. It uses mathematics to study elements of music such as tempo, chord progression, form, and meter. The attempt to structure and communicate new ways of composing and hearing music has led to musical applications of set theory, abstract algebra and number theory .
Philosophy of music is the study of "fundamental questions about the nature and value of music and our experience of it". [1] The philosophical study of music has many connections with philosophical questions in metaphysics and aesthetics. The expression was born in the 19th century and has been used especially as the name of a discipline since ...
Evolutionary musicology is a subfield of biomusicology that grounds the cognitive mechanisms of music appreciation and music creation in evolutionary theory. It covers vocal communication in other animals, theories of the evolution of human music, and holocultural universals in musical ability and processing.
Theory, even of music of the common practice period, may take other forms. [155] Musical set theory is the application of mathematical set theory to music, first applied to atonal music. Speculative music theory, contrasted with analytic music theory, is devoted to the analysis and synthesis of music materials, for example tuning systems ...