Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup crazy_music Re: POost 1 of 11 proving that math has no relation to music

--- In crazy_music@y..., xed@e... wrote:
> FROM: mclaren
> TO : new practical microtonality group
> SUBJECT: Post 1 of 11 providing evidence
> that mathematics has no relation
> to music

[snip]

> Indeed, a variety of cutting-edge scientific research all
> converges on the inescapable conclusion that mathematics has no
> relevance to music, and that bodily states and bodily kinesthetics
> and emotions provide far better analytical explanations for and
> compositional tools in music than lists of numbers or equations or
> logical abstract structures of the kind favored by Heinrich Schenker
> or Alan Forte, or for that matter the mathematical masturbation
> specialists who currently dominate the Alternative Wanking List.
>
> [1] The first piece of evidence that mathematics proves
> irrelevant to music:

[snip]

Well, I'm not sure I want to get into a debate here, but I contend
there is a relationship -- a one-way relationship, though. Most
mathematicians I have known, including myself, were fascinated with
music, listened to classical music from an early age, and were at
least for parts of their younger lives performers, though many
dropped out of music once the urge to be mathematicians took hold.
Yet most musicians are *not* fascinated by mathematics, most don't
show an early talent for math and drop it in favor of music. Of
course, the same has been said of mathematics and humor and
mathematics and numerous other fields.

Let's face it -- not everybody can do math. Even fewer do it well and
many, myself among them, use math primarily as a tool rather than
being into the deep theory for theory's own sake. The thought of
devoting my life to abstract theoretical math at the same time bores
and frightens me.

What I think is undeniable, though, is that mathematicians, probably
starting with the Sumerians if we are to believe Joe Monzo, and
certainly no later than the Golden Age of ancient Greece, put music,
humor, logic, rhetoric, physics and many other subjects under their
scrutiny with the aim of applying their tools. I'm not at all sure we
mathematicians know more about music *now* than we did in the days of
Pythagoras.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, Chief Scientist, Borasky Research
http://www.borasky-research.net http://www.aracnet.com/~znmeb
mailto:znmeb@... mailto:znmeb@...

Q: How do you tell when a pineapple is ready to eat?
A: It picks up its knife and fork.

There is no way for ME to debate Brians points with
him, whether on Schoenberg, Helmholtz or neuro-research
into which parts of the brain do this and that. I can
neither keep up with the posting volume nor the
references.

However, for those who feel like they have to choose
sides in life (Partch vs Schoenberg, math versus
feelings, this tuning list versus other tuning lists),
I'll just make a few points.

Where Brian blames Schoenberg for the
Music School politics of sixty years after he
published his theoretical offerring, I commend him
trying to figure out where to go after Mahler et al
blew up the major/minor system, for having helped
Berg and Webern find their paths, and for directly or
indirectly influencing many composers who I have enjoyed
in the twentieth century. This is all besides his own
music and artwork (which I don't have a great familiarity
with except for Verlachte Nachte which is a fav).

We can easily see that his math was wrong regarding
overtone series and 12tet etc, but this really has no
impact on all the other things I mentioned.

Similarly, Brian takes some research that indicates that
we still don't know how the "mind" works, and since it
indicates that "logic" and "emotion", "small picture"
and "big picture" are processed in different parts and
different ways that he has "proved" that "math has no
relationship to music". I look at the same data and see
that things are much more mixed than that, the point that
damaged emotional capability resulted in damaged rational
capability for instance. I understand enough about math
to know that the "Eureka" moment is in the "big picture"
part of the brain. I understand enough about polishing
a song or a painting to know that in art, there is "small
picture" activity going on during the "work" phase (for
instance in painting, adding something for "balance". In
writing a song, the decision on whether addition of a
bridge, or a different harmonization, detracts from the
essance or provides enough "counter-example" that the
essance is amplified.

Brian, you posted MP3s, one of which is titled something
about 37 limit JI, one is titled something about 53, and
one is titled something about 1/4tone19. What is the point
of these numbers and why aren't they math? Can I interchange
those titles and have them equally valid?

I assume not because you were discussing issues there that
can be made most clear by using numbers. You were using
numbers and indeed math because it communicated something
about the components that went into your creation of that
sound. When Dan Stearns posts a list of cents, he is
posting very clear information about a music system. I can
go try it. When we say this or that ET has "good fifths",
you are saying something that can be expressed quite easily
numerically, and if it doesn't hold in all cases, so what,
we are talking about music.

Now one could say "using numbers to communicate is not the
same as math" (though you slammed me and Dan for posting
information in numerical form, as if it was math). But I
think that it is a slippery slope that shows that "no
relation to music" is a bit of an overstatement. Obviously
if math can model music (as it models gravity and a lot
of other things), then there is something in the way the
brain and/or the universe works that has a "relation".

Oh well. I did download your music and was impressed. The
hardest part in all this business is getting decent timbral
renderring from all this miserable technology and you've
certainly paid your dues. Its good music and it sounds that
way too.

Thanks also for bringing up what could be a very interesting
discussion, the difference between discursive arts and non-
discursive arts. Perhaps information content decreases in
the arts in the following order. Perhaps this is also the
order with which mathematical modelling is attempted with
greater or lesser amounts of success. Note these classes
do have a fair amount of overlap, expressionist painting
(NOT abstract expressionist painting) and photography are
somewhat different on the information spectrum, as are
John Cage and Ralph Vaughn Williams.

music dance
abstart visual art
poetry
representative visual art
prose

Beats me, its the weekend, I should paint and play.

Bob Valentine

Re: POost 1 of 11 proving that math has no relation to music

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