Re: [microsound] math anxiety

[Andrei <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, ian stewart wrote:

> audisensa:
> >and oh yeah, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind about math and music
> being family... <
>
> more than a shred of doubt in my mind (although it depends how you mean
> this). although math can be used to model certain musical parameters, it
> has, in my opinion, essentially nothing to do with what we find rewarding in
> music. the math-music connection i think stems from a language confusion. we
> use words like "logic" in both fields, but mathematical logic and musical
> logic are fundamentally different things. happy to discuss this further,


I think when people say there's a connection between math and music
they're referring more to the underlying physics of music and how you can
sort of explain the physics of sound in mathematical terms.
And beyond that you can find a lot of symmetry and order in music - in
things like meter, song structure, form, etc. - which certainly seem to
have something with the way we process music.
And look at some of the basic motif manipulation techniques like
inversion, retrograde & inversion retrograde.

Andrei