Music Banter - View Single Post - is classical music like math?
View Single Post
Old 04-01-2016, 08:35 AM   #17 (permalink)
bob_32_116
Music Addict
 
bob_32_116's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: 32S 116E
Posts: 324
Default

There is a certain amount of mathematics in the study of the theory of music. Mathematics though is a vast endeavour, with many branches. When people say "music is maths", what they are usually talking about is a very small subset of maths, namely number theory as applied to the notes of whatever scale you are discussing.

I think the idea that "music is maths" would have been news to many of the pioneer folk and blues musicians, who most likely just played and sang whatever sounded good to them, in many cases not even knowing anything about reading or writing musical notation, let alone any mathematical basis behind it.
bob_32_116 is offline   Reply With Quote