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Musimathics: The Mathematical Foundations of Music, Volume 1
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"Mathematics can be as effortless as humming a tune, if you know the tune," writes Gareth Loy. In "Musimathics," Loy teaches us the tune, providing a friendly and spirited tour of the mathematics of music -- a commonsense, self-contained introduction for the nonspecialist reader. It is designed for musicians who find their art increasingly mediated by technology, and for a
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I started reading this book because I was hoping that I could leverage my mathematics background to learn some music theory. The author does a decent job bringing together information on a very large topic. The writing is casual, and the author builds up both music theory and mathematical theory so that the writing is accessible to most. Being that I have a fairly deep understanding of mathematics, I found most of explanations of mathematics to be a waste of time but if you are reading this book
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Picked this up and then got sidetracked. Picked it up a couple years later and went through it quickly - very interesting read. Music making dissected from a bunch of different angles. Highlights
- the history of tuning (and its parallels with science) and alternate tunings/microtunings
- quantifications of human perception
- we identify the direction of sound by the way our ear EQs things
- a lot of how an instrument makes sound is the way it transfers energy
- open pipes have different nodes ...more
- the history of tuning (and its parallels with science) and alternate tunings/microtunings
- quantifications of human perception
- we identify the direction of sound by the way our ear EQs things
- a lot of how an instrument makes sound is the way it transfers energy
- open pipes have different nodes ...more
If you want to program (or build) synthesizers from scratch, but have massive gaps in your physics, the chapters "Physical Basis of Sound", "Geometrical Basis of Sound", "Introduction to Acoustics" and "Vibrating Systems" could be particularly handy.
Porting parts of chapter 9, "Composition and Methodology" to Ruby and Max/MSP was fun.
There are Suggested Reading sections are the end of most chapters, too! ...more
Porting parts of chapter 9, "Composition and Methodology" to Ruby and Max/MSP was fun.
There are Suggested Reading sections are the end of most chapters, too! ...more
The first volume of this book is a survey of cherry picked topics in music and math as it relates to music.
There were a lot of errors in the musical notation, which makes me wonder how much of the math and physics have errors. I was not paying close attention to any of the equations. The second volume looks more practical for actually implementing audio algorithms.
The author spends too long on his algorithmic composition chapter at the end. It's like 1/3 of the entire book.
Problems aside, this b ...more
There were a lot of errors in the musical notation, which makes me wonder how much of the math and physics have errors. I was not paying close attention to any of the equations. The second volume looks more practical for actually implementing audio algorithms.
The author spends too long on his algorithmic composition chapter at the end. It's like 1/3 of the entire book.
Problems aside, this b ...more
This book brought together a great number of threads that I had discovered for myself in a more cohesive way. The math and the physics behind our perception of music has allowed me to approach composition in a completely different way.
This book was awesome. Topically, it was exactly what I was looking for, but the math was a little beyond me. But at least it gave me a better sense of what it means when someone says, "Music is so mathematical." I'd love to take a class on this.
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yo.
Dec 14, 2015
Haluk Özgen
marked it as to-read
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“Natural examples of chaotic dynamical systems include the earth’s atmosphere and the vibrations of virtually all sources of musical sound, such as the scrape of a bow on the strings or the turbulent flow of air from the player’s lips over the fipple of a flute. Small differences in initial conditions can be amplified by such systems to such an extent that any error in measuring the initial conditions can render any long-range forecast of system behavior wildly inaccurate, even if there is no further disturbance to the system. The weather from day to day is never exactly the same. Notes played on a flute, though they may sound alike, are never exactly the same. Our ears gloss over these differences, hearing sound categorically. But if we wish to understand the precise mechanism of a dynamical system so as to accurately predict its behavior over time, the initial conditions must be known exactly.”
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“Both mathematical notation and musical notation point to universes quite different from the one in which ordinary language functions so well. But, in each too, there is genius in the very notation that has developed for giving representation to ideas that seem to lie beyond ordinary language. There are times in mathematics when the similarities in notation is the first clue to a deeper relationship. Similarly musical notation not only created a structure within which Western music could develop but also shows something other than just the sounds being made. It indicates how the various elements stand in relation to one another, how sound creates a space, it shows how different musical voices move against and through each other.”
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