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Re: [microsound] math anxiety

I definitely agree. The math-music overlap has as much to do with the physics of sound as it does with the role of melodic development and rhythmic patterns in composing.

File under "further reading." Like Stuart M. Isacoff's book 'Temperament,' New York Times critic Edward Rothstein's book 'Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics' might have benefited from a cold-blooded editor, someone to prune jokes and rein in some of the prose. Certainly, it's quite possible that the math -- the formulas, the patterns, the sense of geometric play -- inherent in the musical works that both men investigate was only partially evident to the composers who wrote the music in the first place. But there's much in these two, relatively quick-read books alone to provide a solid foundation for comprehending the math that's at the heart of music, from the logarithmic nature of overtones, to the centuries-long battles over proper temperament for instruments, to the gamesmanship in the melodic variations of Bach and other chamber-music composers.

Marc

At 10:34 PM 7/21/2002 -0400, Andrei wrote: 
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


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Marc Weidenbaum
www.disquiet.com