Math and Music

ProggyMan · 10-16-2008, 08:02 PM

Amazon.com: Musimathics, Volume 1: The Mathematical Foundations of Music: Gareth Loy: Books
Here it is, I know the author personally, he's into Traditional Irish Folk mostly but I think he minored in music theory in college. Maybe you can find a bio.

Seltzer · 10-17-2008, 05:24 AM

Care to back that up?

Mathemusician7 · 10-17-2008, 12:11 PM

I'm not sure if you are saying "I dont think so" to the inversion method, but it really does work for any major or minor three note chord, meaning I am excluding all seventh, diminished, or any other more complicated chord. It's actually quite easy to show that this is true. There are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, C D E F G A B, plus all the accidentals. So if we just write them as numbers rather than letters, then we get 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11 (I just realized a mistake I made in my previous post; I should have started C on 0 rather than 1). There are 24 three note chords using these notes and the rules of constructing chords. 12 major and 12 minor. I can just write it in list form to show that what I said earlier is true.

C Major - (0,4,7) - (0,8,5) - F minor (another mistake I made, it is not rooted on the minor third)
C# Major - (1,5,8) - (11,7,4) - E minor
D Major - (2,6,9) - (10,6,3) - D# minor
D# Major - (3,7,10) - (9,5,2) - D minor
E Major - (4,8,11) - (8,4,1) - C# minor
F Major - (5,8,0 - (7,2,0) - C minor

I'm going to leave it at that because there is actually a really nice little pattern that is coming out of this. Once the pattern is found it is very easy to figure out the rest.
Also, if you inverted the minor chords, you would get the same major chords out as above.
So F minor inverted is C Major and so on.

mr dave · 10-17-2008, 01:56 PM

as far as i know autechre's entire catalog was created using formulas. haven't really paid attention to them in a while though. i've only got their 'confield' disc, had a bunch of mp3s too a while back.

a friend of mine was telling me that there was a correlation between the frequencies of the different colours of refracted light and the major tones. any truth to that?

joyboyo53 · 10-17-2008, 02:27 PM

I actually read an article that was a study about how all music can be plotted to make geometric surface structues that are really quit stunning. They went on to explain that our love for music is based on our understanding of mathematics. They also showed that some of the great past musicians were very talented in geometry specifically. Here is another interesting article, unrelated to the article I was just talking about Music Has Its Own Geometry, Researchers Find

10-17-2008, 05:24 AM	#12 (permalink)
Seltzer Fish in the percolator! Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Hobbit Land NZ Posts: 2,870	Care to back that up? __________________ In the Court of King Crimson \| Last.fm \| RYM

10-17-2008, 12:11 PM	#13 (permalink)
Mathemusician7 Groupie Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Ventura, CA Posts: 4	I'm not sure if you are saying "I dont think so" to the inversion method, but it really does work for any major or minor three note chord, meaning I am excluding all seventh, diminished, or any other more complicated chord. It's actually quite easy to show that this is true. There are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, C D E F G A B, plus all the accidentals. So if we just write them as numbers rather than letters, then we get 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11 (I just realized a mistake I made in my previous post; I should have started C on 0 rather than 1). There are 24 three note chords using these notes and the rules of constructing chords. 12 major and 12 minor. I can just write it in list form to show that what I said earlier is true. C Major - (0,4,7) - (0,8,5) - F minor (another mistake I made, it is not rooted on the minor third) C# Major - (1,5,8) - (11,7,4) - E minor D Major - (2,6,9) - (10,6,3) - D# minor D# Major - (3,7,10) - (9,5,2) - D minor E Major - (4,8,11) - (8,4,1) - C# minor F Major - (5,8,0 - (7,2,0) - C minor I'm going to leave it at that because there is actually a really nice little pattern that is coming out of this. Once the pattern is found it is very easy to figure out the rest. Also, if you inverted the minor chords, you would get the same major chords out as above. So F minor inverted is C Major and so on. __________________ Mathemusician Math and Music World

10-16-2008, 08:02 PM	#11 (permalink)
ProggyMan Reformed Jackass Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 3,964	Amazon.com: Musimathics, Volume 1: The Mathematical Foundations of Music: Gareth Loy: Books Here it is, I know the author personally, he's into Traditional Irish Folk mostly but I think he minored in music theory in college. Maybe you can find a bio.

10-17-2008, 02:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
joyboyo53 down the rabbit hole Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: the mountain called monkey Posts: 764	I actually read an article that was a study about how all music can be plotted to make geometric surface structues that are really quit stunning. They went on to explain that our love for music is based on our understanding of mathematics. They also showed that some of the great past musicians were very talented in geometry specifically. Here is another interesting article, unrelated to the article I was just talking about Music Has Its Own Geometry, Researchers Find