I’ve been studying music theory off and on for the past few years, slowly trying to retrain my brain to understand the actual mechanics of music. It’s not often that you see a writer talk about music theory in terms of Pythagoras and Einstein, but Seed Magazine writer Dmitri Tymoczko has embraced his inner mathematician and done just that. Here’s an excerpt:
Western music can ultimately be represented as a series of points and line segments on abstract shapes in higher dimensions. If we can understand their structure, then the deep principles underlying Western music will finally be revealed.
If you are even vaguely interested in the science behind the sound of Western music, you’ll want to read Dmitri’s article. Good stuff.
One Comment
If you like the scientific approach to music theory, you should also read David Huron’s “Sweet Anticipation.” It is the single best book on music theory that I’ve read in the last 25 years!
Here’s the website for that book:
http://csml.som.ohio-state.edu/SweetAnticipation/
And if you are a hard-core math person, you might also check out some of the stuff that people are doing with group theory and music structure.
Post a Comment