Math and Music: The Deeper Links (1982)(nytimes.com) |
Math and Music: The Deeper Links (1982)(nytimes.com) |
The work's topics are, mostly, independent so I find it enjoyable to pick up and read a chapter from time to time. He tries to cover the math of everything musical from scales and composition to synthesis and signal processing to acoustics and physics.
"Stravinsky, in discussing ''the art of combination which is composition'' quoted the mathematician Marston Morse: ''Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and in which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.'' Morse, Stravinsky says, could as well have been talking about music. It is not only in the clarity of things, but in their beauty and mystery that the two arts join."
It looks like it's a simple problem, then you realise there are edge cases, then you realise the edge cases are where all the interesting detail is, then you realise your models are braindead and actually kind of useless, and then maybe you start again with a better model.
Repeat forever.
I am a lot less knowledgeable than you have imagined here. :-) Well, I know practically all the physics and electronics part, but have not found much that connects to music theory. I could figure the mathematical why's of scales and chords ("stacked intervals with more or less pure dissonance or consonance") by myself. But ever since have been struggling to find about which chords/progressions would fit which melody. Most musicians are doing this naturally, "by the ear" as they say. :-) And music theory books I have looked at so far (including the thick ones) do not talk about mathematics at all. :-( :-)
Two more enjoyable books on the math and physics of music (though, again, probably not far enough up the tree of abstraction for chords):
"The Science of Musical Sound" by Pierce (lovely little book, not too deep though, quite coffee tableable)
"Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" by Benade (old book, considered a classic, reads like a science text)
Good luck!