Hi! I love music and I want to know more about how it works. Can you teach me about music theory?
Sure! Here's a basic breakdown of the elements that make up musical notation:

TONE (pitch) - The lowest note in the octave, also known as the tonic or root note; this is the starting point for all other notes in Western classical music and most forms of Eastern traditional music.

CHORD (sonority) - A group of tones played simultaneously with some kind of interval between them, like an augmented chord, which consists of three equal tone-sized steps above and one step below the root.

MODALITY - An indication of whether a sound should be sounded "legato" (as if flowing smoothly), staccato (harshly paced), or at various other velocities. Also called "staging."

STRESS (timing and dynamics) - How strongly a particular tone or chord should stand out from its neighbors, relative to the overall structure of the piece.

LYRICISM - Expressions of feeling through words or sounds rather than strict pitches or meter patterns.

Notation systems vary widely across cultures and eras, but these are the basics common to almost every style of modern Western music: Classical music, jazz, rock, blues, country, folk, etc.