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I don't know if there is really any specific relationship between Radiohead and mathematics more than any other musician or composer, and I agree with you-- mat

by zinkem 15y ago

I don't know if there is really any specific relationship between Radiohead and mathematics more than any other musician or composer, and I agree with you-- mathematics doesn't play into my feelings towards radiohead, they're a great band. But you point out "music theory isn't much rooted in math." I think the sentiment is true, music theory is generally taught and practiced without much thought to mathematics. However, the fundamental concepts music theory are based on are all analogous to mathematical statements. You can see what I'm talking about here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics#Frequency_and_harmony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics#Frequency... You'll notice that a fundamental frequency is picked, and we give names to several related frequencies (octave, third, fifth etc). All of these labels are analogous to various multiplications of the fundamental frequency. We learn to recognize some of the simpler relationships, as they are easily identifiable (different chords are an example of this). Any one who can count can recognize a number on the number line and compare it to another number and tell if it's smaller or larger. Those who have begin to understand arithmetic can identify the difference between those numbers, and if they are multiples of each other. Advanced mathematicians can tell us about more complicated relationships. In music we have tones that can be ordered, and musicians learn through experience to make these same judgments about tones without even knowing it. Any amateur musician can hear a pair of tones side by side and recognize which is higher or lower in pitch. The more advanced ear can identify notes that are the same or they can tell you a harmonic relationship between them. This is a different way of experiencing mathematical relationships within an ordered set. At it's core, I think music theory is absolutely the study of finding which combinations of tones create the numerical relationships we find most appealing in sound.

jtheory 15y ago
This isn't much different from what I'm saying, I think -- you mention frequencies, which don't come up much in most study of music theory beyond more or less what you have in your comment. Beyond that, well, I suppose you could say it's "math", but that's a bit like saying price comparing at the grocery store (calculate the per-kilo price!) is math -- it won't have math geeks drooling. I can recognize intervals by ear, but it's just practice. You start out by "cheating" (twinkle twinkle starts with a leap of a perfect fifth, the NBC call sign with a major sixth, etc.), then you just learn it. I'll bet you could get the gist of it using the reference melodies pretty quickly. You can refer to the relations using basic math terminology, or just the music theory technology, but regardless it doesn't feel like anything beyond elementary math -- it goes much quicker into psychology territory.

by zinkem 15y ago

jtheory 15y ago

This isn't much different from what I'm saying, I think -- you mention frequencies, which don't come up much in most study of music theory beyond more or less what you have in your comment. Beyond that, well, I suppose you could say it's "math", but that's a bit like saying price comparing at the grocery store (calculate the per-kilo price!) is math -- it won't have math geeks drooling. I can recognize intervals by ear, but it's just practice. You start out by "cheating" (twinkle twinkle starts with a leap of a perfect fifth, the NBC call sign with a major sixth, etc.), then you just learn it. I'll bet you could get the gist of it using the reference melodies pretty quickly. You can refer to the relations using basic math terminology, or just the music theory technology, but regardless it doesn't feel like anything beyond elementary math -- it goes much quicker into psychology territory.