Name: CASTILLO, Ahyessa B.

Score
GED102 - MMW
Program & Year: ChE-1 Section: E01 Writing Exercise
Mathematical Vignette
Student No.: 2019110169 Date: March 4 2020 3rd Quarter 2019-2020

Magical Mathematics of Music

Our sensitivity to sound is connected to the logic in our brains. The astronomer Galileo

Galilei observed in 1623 that the entire universe "is written in the language of mathematics", and

indeed it is remarkable the extent to which science and society are governed by mathematical

ideas. It is perhaps even more surprising that music, with all its passion and emotion, is also

based upon mathematical relationships. Such musical notions as octaves, chords, scales, and keys

can all be demystified and understood logically using simple mathematics.

This paper revolves around the relationship of mathematics in the world of music. It is

also about Cheung’s work that shows the power of mathematics to open new possibilities in

music. Music just didn’t go from nowhere. Music is the result of a numeric organization. The

interpretation of all these things is done by our wonderful and mysterious brain. It also shows

how music works mathematically and how the logical relations are understood in our brain,

creating tranquility or tension.

Mathematics is involved in some way in every field of study known to mankind. In fact,

it could be argued that mathematics is involved in some way in everything that exists

everywhere, or even everything that is imagined to exist in any conceivable reality. Any possible
or imagined situation that has any relationship whatsoever to space, time, or thought would also

involve mathematics.

Anthony Cheung’s formal mathematical training essentially ended with high school

calculus. But as a musician and composer, he has explored mathematical phenomena in new

ways, especially through their influence on harmony and timbre. Composers found new ways of

fusing the two musical qualities late last century, says Cheung, assistant professor in music.

“Through technology and thinking about acoustics, we can change sounds on the

computer in innumerable ways,” says Cheung, whose musical composition earned him a 2012

Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.

The work of Cheung and others shows the power of mathematics to open new

possibilities in music. Modern experiments with computer music are just the most recent

example. According to musician-scholars like Eugenia Cheng, a visiting senior lecturer in

mathematics and a concert pianist, the history and practice of music would have unfolded much

differently without an appreciation of what unites music and math.

During the Baroque period, a mathematical breakthrough inspired one of Cheng’s

favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, to write The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722), his

book of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys. Bach was able to write in every key

so successfully because mathematicians found better ways to calculate the 12th root of two. This

is related to the musical problem of dividing the octave into 12 equal intervals, which involves

splitting sound waves into ratios rather than equal lengths.

 “That’s why music before the Baroque time didn’t really modulate,” Cheng says. “It

always stayed in the same key. Because of the way that they tuned keyboards, if they moved a

key it would have sounded terrible.”

Any song incorporates many basic math skills, including matching and comparing

(through changes in pitch, volume, and rhythm); patterning and sequencing (through repetitions

of melodies, rhythms, and lyrics); and counting and addition (identifying cardinal numbers and

adding one more with each verse). When you add moving to the beat, you have created an entire

mind/body package of learning rolled into one song.

It was observed that when a frequency is multiplied by 2, the note still the same. For

example, the A (440 Hz) multiplied by 2 = 880 Hz is also an A, but just one octave above. If the

goal was to lower one octave, it would be enough just dividing by 2. We can conclude then, that

a note and its respective note have a relation of ½.

To the Ancient Greece, in that time, there was a man called Pythagoras that made really

important discoveries to Mathematics (and music). This that we showed about octaves, he

discovered “playing” with a stretched string. Imagine a stretched string tied in its extremities.

When we touch this string, it vibrates

Pythagoras decided to divide this

string in two parts and touched each extremity again. The sound that was produced was the same,

but more acute.

 Pythagoras didn’t stop there. He decided to experience how it would be the sound if the

string was divided in 3 parts

He noticed that a new sound appeared;

different from the previous one. This time, it wasn’t the same note one octave above, but a

different note, that was supposed to receive another name. This sound, besides being different,

worked well with the previous one, creating a pleasant harmony to the ear, because these

divisions showed till here have Mathematics relations 1/2 and 2/3 (our brain likes well defined

logic relations).

Thus, he continued doing subdivisions and combining the sounds mathematically

creating scales that, later, stimulated the creation of musical instruments that could play this

scales. The tritone interval, for example, was obtained in a relation 32/45, a complex and

inaccurate relation, factor that makes our brain to consider this sound unstable and tense. In the

course of time, the notes were receiving the names we know today.

Musical pieces are read much like you would read math symbols. The symbols represent

some bit of information about the piece. Musical pieces are divided into sections called

measures or bars. Each measure embodies an equal amount of time. Furthermore, each measure

is divided into equal portions called beats. These are all mathematical divisions of time.

Fractions are used in music to indicate lengths of notes. In a musical piece, the time

signature tells the musician information about the rhythm of the piece. A time signature is

generally written as two integers, one above the other. The number on the bottom tells the
musician which note in the piece gets a single beat (count). The top number tells the musician

how many of this note is in each measure. Numbers can tell us a lot about musical pieces.

Each note has a different shape to indicate its beat length or time. Notes are classified in

terms of numbers as well. There are whole notes (one note per measure), half notes (two notes

per measure), quarter notes (four notes per measure), eighth notes (eight notes per measure), and

sixteenth notes (sixteen notes per measure). These numbers signify how long the notes last.

That is, a whole note would last through the entire measure whereas a quarter note would only

last ¼ of the measure and thus there is enough time for four quarter notes in one measure. This

can be expressed mathematically since 4 x 1/4 = 1. A note with a dot after it lengthens the note

by half. For example, a quarter note with a dot after it would be held for 3/8 of a measure, since

Three eigths of a measure is midway between a quarter note and a half note. It is

important for musicians to understand the relationships and values of fractions in order to

correctly hold a note.

Many people and cultures created their own music scales. One example is the Chinese

people, which began with the idea of Pythagoras (using strings).

They played C in a stretched string and then divided this string in 3 parts, like showed

before. The result of this division was the note G. Noticing that these notes had a harmony; they

repeated the procedure starting in G, dividing again this string in 3 parts, resulting the note D.
This note had a pleasant harmony with G and also with C. This procedure was then repeated

starting in D, resulting in A. After that, starting in A, they got E. When they repeated this

procedure of dividing the string in three parts once again, resulting in B, there was a problem,

because B didn’t fit well when played with C (the first note of the experiment). These notes were

really close one another, what caused a “sound discomfort”.

Because of this, the Chinese finished their divisions getting the notes C, G, D, A and E,

taking B aside. These notes served as base to Chinese Music, making a scale with 5 notes

(Pentatonic). This Pentatonic Scale, for being pleasant and consonant, represented very well the

Oriental Culture, which was always connected to harmony and stability.

Since its creation until today, the Pentatonic Scale represents a good option to melodies,

as already said in the topic “Pentatonic Scale”. But let’s return to the subject of notes and

frequencies, because we just showed 5 notes of the scale.

The western music, which works with 12 notes, did not discard the note B as the Oriental

Culture did. The western people observed that the notes C and B were close one from another

and decided to create a more comprehensive scale. In this scale, all the notes should have the

same distance one from another. And this distance should be the interval that had between C and

B (one semitone). In other words, between C and D, for example, should exist an intermediate

note, because the distance between C and D (one tone) was bigger than the distance of C and B

(one semitone). Through an analysis of frequency, it was discovered that multiplying the

frequency on the note B by the number 1.0595 we would arrive in the frequency of C.

Frequency of B: 246.9 Hz

Frequency of C: 261.6 Hz
 Multiplying the frequency of B by 1.0595 we will have:

246.9 x 1.0595 = 261.6 Hz (the note C).

As the goal is to keep the same relation (distance) to the other notes, this procedure was

used to discover which note will come after C. Multiplying the frequency of C by 1.0595:

261.6 x 1.0595 = 277.2 Hz (the note C sharp)

Repeating this procedure to see what comes after C sharp:

277.2 x 1.0595 = 293.6 Hz (the note D)

Notice that following this logic, we can create all the chromatic scale. In other words,

after multiplying the frequency of C by the number “1.0595” twelve times, we will return to C.

This is possible because “1.0595” corresponds to the result of the square root 12√2. Notice that

12√2 multiplied 12 times by itself is (12√2)12 = 2. And it can be seen that a note multiplied by 2

is itself one octave above. Now it can clearly see that these numbers didn’t come by chance. The

goal since the beginning was dividing a scale in 12 identical parts, in a way that the last note

return to be the first. It was like this that Equal Temperate Scale appeared, also called as

Chromatic.

Those who know a little bit about Math have noticed that it was worked with the

logarithm of base 2. Because of this, the makers of piano put the form of a logarithm graphic in

the piano body, to make a reference to this Musical Mathematics Discovery. The example of a

logarithmic and a piano body is as follows

 There are many other Mathematical explanations to many questions about music, but to

show them here it would be necessary to talk about advanced topic in Mathematics, like Fourier

series, Riemann Zeta Function, etc. Like few people have this base in Mathematics, we will not

go deeper.

Obviously, we did everything using approximation (round numbers), because an analysis

more accurate would be boring to the majority of the readers. Music just didn’t go from nowhere.

Music is the result of a numeric organization. The interpretation of all these things is done by our

wonderful and mysterious brain.

The final conclusion is that, if you are a musician, so you are (in a way or another)

mathematician, because the feelings of pleasure that you feel while listening to music hide

subliminal calculations. Your brain likes calculations, it is a calculating machine.The more you

practice, study and know music, the more this faculty will be developed. Probably you will begin

to feel pleasure while listening to songs that before didn’t bring great feelings to you.

References

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http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/beyond/articles/Music/music1.html
Jr, J. H. D. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2020, from
http://jackhdavid.thehouseofdavid.com/papers/math.html
KoppesPhoto, S., & Kozloff, R. (n.d.). Combining math and music. Retrieved from
https://www.uchicago.edu/features/combining_math_and_music/
Mathematics and Music - Study. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2020, from
http://www.simplifyingtheory.com/mathematics-and-music/
The magical mathematics of music. (2018, July 26). Retrieved from
https://plus.maths.org/content/magical-mathematics-music