Music and Mathematics: From Pythagoras to Fractals

Front Cover
John Fauvel, Raymond Flood, Robin J. Wilson
Oxford University Press, 2003 - Mathematics - 189 pages
From Ancient Greek times, music has been seen as a mathematical art, and the relationship between mathematics and music has fascinated generations. This collection of wide ranging, comprehensive and fully-illustrated papers, authorized by leading scholars, presents the link between these two subjects in a lucid manner that is suitable for students of both subjects, as well as the general reader with an interest in music. Physical, theoretical, physiological, acoustic, compositional and analytical relationships between mathematics and music are unfolded and explored with focus on tuning and temperament, the mathematics of sound, bell-ringing and modern compositional techniques.
 

Contents

an overview
11
Music and mathematics through history
11
Tuning and temperament closing the spiral
13
Musical cosmology Kepler and his readers
29
The mathematics of musical sound
45
The science of musical sound
47
Faggots fretful fiasco
61
Helmholtz combinational tones and consonance
77
Ringing the changes bells and mathematics
113
Composing with numbers sets rows and magic squares
131
The composer speaks
147
Microtones and projective planes
149
Composing with fractals
163
Notes on contributors
173
Notes references and further reading
177
Acknowledgments
183

Mathematical structure in music
89
The geometry of music
91

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About the author (2003)

JohnFauvelOpen University (deceased), UK.

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