re: [microsound] math

[ian stewart <artsonics@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

pelagius pelagius:
>    Many people seem to confuse the model for the real thing. <

this is exactly my point- simply because math can be used to model a small 
set of musical phenomena, this does not mean math has anything to do with 
what music is actually _about_. to make an analogy with another area, 
sentence construction in chomsky's generative grammar essentially comes down 
to recursive functions, but outside of oulipo does anyone think math can 
help to explain what literature is about? similarly, math has little to say 
about any of the questions i think are important to music. math isn't 
helpful in identifying a good cello performance, a memorable sound event, 
structures in brahms, poetics in gunter.

the comment that led me to write about this in the first place was-

Anechoic:
> music was considered a manifestation of math way backin the time of the 
> Greeks...I persoanlly see no difference between the two <

i may be misinterpreting this, but if it means, as i read it, that math and 
music are the same, then drinfeld modular forms, heegner points on elliptic 
curves and zeros of the riemann zeta function all have something to do with 
music. what? there are so many fundamental differences between math and 
music, their goals and their structures, that i remain very suspicious of 
any _profound_ connection between math and music. best,

ian




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