What does variation and theme mean in music?
Variation and theme have fairly specific meanings in the context of a piece of music. They are most succinctly and easily defined as the following: A theme is an important element of melody in the piece, and as such it will be repeated several times through the course of the one piece of music. A variation, in music, refers to an element that is repeated one or more times in the music, but is changed in some way – for instance through a key change, some embellishments and so forth.
