A large chunk of music has been made in the last 50+ years that largely cannot be analysed (in any meaningful way) via notes, focused instead on variations on repetition/timbre/rhythm/dynamics/etc. Hence my distinction of "notes" below.
From my relatively layman point of view, the fundamentals of western music theory seem to focus mainly on notes. Pitch, scales, melody, chords, modes, consonance, and many other things are frameworks to understand notes. However it seems very limited by comparison in terms of understanding rhythm or timbre.
I appreciate that timbre is somewhat problematic and abstract, especially if the instruments or timbres are themselves abstract (i.e. electronic music).
We have stuff like meter, syncopation, and swing for rhythm, but there doesn't seem to be much underlying it. By which I mean that we don't seem to have anything comparative to keys, melody, harmony, etc. For rhythm, we seem to do little more than define intervals, and name styles. There seems to be no understanding as deep as the circle of fifths.
Do we have any better/richer frameworks for a deeper understanding of rhythm and timbre? Particularly rhythm, and how certain rhythmic intervals sound good together.
