Music theory is the study of music practices and possibilities. Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term “music theory”:
The first is the so-called “foundations”, which are currently taught as the elements of codification basic signatures, time signatures, rhythmic coding, etc. The second is the study of writings on music from antiquity onwards. […] The third area is the current musical study which seeks to define processes and general principles in music – a field of research that can be distinguished from analysis in that it takes as its starting point rather than individual work or performance but the underlying material upon which it is built.
