I see it as the study of musical possibilities.
Theorists generally spend a lot of time analyzing musical artworks.
While I see much value that, as a scholar I prefer to use such analysis as a means to a greater end. Our changing world confronts musicians as well as society with crucial issues having to do with the basic functions and definitions of music. Investigating those functions and definitions is the heart of my research. The liberal arts were Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Music had to do with the manifestation of numbers in music, which is why it came between Geometry and Astronomy.