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daveinspain

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The problem to me with "music as numbers" is that it's a very old idea, but perhaps one best seen and used as description rather than prescription.

 

Vetruvius even got into a bit of it, so it's not as if it's a new concept. The ancients were quite aware of the concept of harmonics, etc.

 

The one atonal piece I wrote approaching 50 years ago was entirely done as math. Was it that neat to listen to even with an exceptional pianist doing the piece? Not really, although he made that 18-year-old kid begin to wonder. <grin>

 

m

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The problem to me with "music as numbers" is that it's a very old idea, but perhaps one best seen and used as description rather than prescription.

 

Vetruvius even got into a bit of it, so it's not as if it's a new concept. The ancients were quite aware of the concept of harmonics, etc.

 

The one atonal piece I wrote approaching 50 years ago was entirely done as math. Was it that neat to listen to even with an exceptional pianist doing the piece? Not really, although he made that 18-year-old kid begin to wonder. <grin>

 

m

 

I would love to hear it...

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I have a couple of degrees in mathematics but don't usually bring it up in public, people already think I strange enough as an artist and musician! [rolleyes]

 

I bet your knowledge of mathematics helps you understand harmonies and tonal intervals... Does a musical note have a modular shape and a harmony a more complex modular shape?

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I bet your knowledge of mathematics helps you understand harmonies and tonal intervals... Does a musical note have a modular shape and a harmony a more complex modular shape?

 

I have a lot of math in my background and yes it does help a lot with understanding music. I hear music and in my mind it takes on mathematical properties and that helps me "see" the music.

This little movie was absolutely wonderful and fascinating.

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I have a lot of math in my background and yes it does help a lot with understanding music. I hear music and in my mind it takes on mathematical properties and that helps me "see" the music.

This little movie was absolutely wonderful and fascinating.

 

funny you should say that, being dyslexic and completely at odds with anything mathematical, I find the idea of linking something so fluid and easy to understand, something so "natural" as music to something, that I find so rigid, formalised and flat as mathematics bizarre.

 

I suppose it all really relates to how an individual links music (in all its forms) to the way in which it's easiest to process it in the mind. For me it's all about patterns and physical distance on the fretboard (or keyboard) - to tell you the truth, it still takes me a few seconds to name all 6 strings on a guitar.

 

So I suppose if you "get" maths, you can make similes and comparisons to it because you're comfortable in its world, but I suppose if your first love was engines and automotive engineering, you'd see camshafts and cogs and belts in how music works and relates to each other.

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I suppose it all really relates to how an individual links music (in all its forms) to the way in which it's easiest to process it in the mind. For me it's all about patterns and physical distance on the fretboard (or keyboard) - to tell you the truth, it still takes me a few seconds to name all 6 strings on a guitar.

 

 

That is math. Forget about the rigidity you find in math, you're actually thinking of "arithmetic" and not math which is full of beauty and even "fluidity" like you see in music.

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Playing the guitar is all about mathematics you have six set string that you then shorten by fretting to make the string shorter or longer thereby changing the tone. Same basic concept at work as on a slide rule or protractor. After all Scales are Scales.

 

I think that the biggest benefit in mathematic knowledge for a musician is the method in which your mind is taught to see spacial problems it gives you the ability to see the breakdown of an instrument as a means to the solution of music it also allows you to change instruments and styles fairly easily because you can actually see the music as well as just feeling it.

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Playing the guitar is all about mathematics you have six set string that you then shorten by fretting to make the string shorter or longer thereby changing the tone. Same basic concept at work as on a slide rule or protractor. After all Scales are Scales.

 

I think that the biggest benefit in mathematic knowledge for a musician is the method in which your mind is taught to see spacial problems it gives you the ability to see the breakdown of an instrument as a means to the solution of music it also allows you to change instruments and styles fairly easily because you can actually see the music as well as just feeling it.

 

 

Exactly!!!

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I may be wrong on this, but I tend to agree with the idea that one reason we all play differently is that our heads work differently.

 

My head is not inclined to math. I did well on SATs as a kid because of basic logic and a degree of visualization since my arithmetic is worse than horrid and in those days we couldn't use slide rules (a great visualization) in math tests. OTOH, I've been into poetry and the rhythms of various things from engines to "dance" since I could walk and talk.

 

So... I tend to think of music as I would read a poem aloud, or prose...

 

I remember watching guys on old one-cylinder John Deere tractors moving their heads to the putt-putt rhythm as if it were music, and I'm sure they didn't realize what they were doing as part of a rhythm of farm work.

 

I dunno. If thinking of math and arithmetic works for somebody, I'm all for it. It just ain't me, whatever I am. OTOH, maybe I should think more of the math side because I've noticed my rhythms tend change during the telling of a story in song without a timekeeper of some sort.

 

Hmmmmm.

 

m

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I agree that we all look at things differently and that different things are important in different ways. I'm a major believer in keeping proper time in music especially if your playing with others. I still use a metronome whenever I'm working up a new song and I usually practice with one several times a week, again just to make sure that I'm in the proper groove, that might all be part of the strict mathematical concept I use when I layout a piece of music in my head. I know other players who barely tune there guitars let alone use a metronome but I can't really enjoy playing if I lose the track.

 

Don't really know but i's served me well over the years especially in the studio when your playing somebody else's music usually without a lot of practice.

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