When music theorists and musicologists talk about musical style they are referring generally to those elements that allow the association of a piece of music with a particular composer, historical period, or aesthetic or nationalistic camp. Following Jan LaRue in his seminal study of musical style: “we can perceive a distinguishing style in a group of pieces from the recurrent use of similar choices; and a composer’s style as a whole can be described in terms of consistent and changing preferences in his use of musical elements and procedures.” This paper challenges some assumptions at the core of this definition and other style studies in light of some recent and some not-so-recent music-theoretical work. Using the idea that music theory reflects our current and ever-changing attitudes toward music, this paper presents a method of stylistic categorization of musical works based how musical works interact with music theories as partners in the creation of musical experience.