Author: rgames
Date: 2008-08-09 23:36
Of course there's a tie between music and mathematics - the process of looking at a score and hearing the music is the same as looking at a page full of equations and visualizing the relationship to, say, a physical phenomenon.
It's about seeing patterns and relating them to other concepts. For example, if you look at a score and see a basic C-E-G harmonic structure followed in the next bar by a C-Eb-G harmonic structure, you recognize it as a shift from major to minor. If you look at a second order differential equation and see the damping term change from positive to negative, you recognize it as a shift from energy removal to energy addition. Same sort of idea: see a pattern, see a change, visualize an effect.
Another example would be counting rhythms: sometimes it's easier to count a rhythm backward from the end of a measure. Similarly, when multiplying two numbers in your head, sometimes it's easier to work backwards from the product of two larger numbers. Same idea.
Whether it's music or mathematics, the underlying mental gymnastics that we use to do the pattern recognition, manipulation, and interpretation are the same.
Now, having said that, it can also be the case that the patterns are not related to anything at all; we just like the patterns (or not, as the case may be). That's "pure math" vs. "applied math"; the musical equivalent is harder to define but suffice it to say that it's probably well represented by the "avant garde" or (possibly) "atonal" music of the last 50 years or so. For this type of music, the direct relationship between the music and a concept like "major" or "minor" is not well-defined. Similarly, there's a lot of math out there that hasn't found practical application yet!
rgames
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Richard G. Ames
Composer - Arranger - Producer
www.rgamesmusic.com
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The Clarinet BBoard
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