GEOMETRY SHAPES SOUND OF MUSIC?

http://unicomm.fsu.edu/pages/releases/2008_04/18_geometrical_music_theory.html

21st-century music professors...brand-new ways...uncharted musical
possibilities...unexplored areas of mathematics...a signal achievement

déjà vu?

iranief wrote:
> http://unicomm.fsu.edu/pages/releases/2008_04/18_geometrical_music_theory.html
> > 21st-century music professors...brand-new ways...uncharted musical > possibilities...unexplored areas of mathematics...a signal achievement
> > d�j� vu?

Well, yes, it's the same story Carl was talking about. And there's no need to shout about it.

They claim they've found unexplored areas of mathematics, which would be interesting if true. It's one of the things that isn't supposed to happen in music theory.

Graham

and a half century late

/^_,',',',_ //^ /Kraig Grady_ ^_,',',',_
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere: North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_ ^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

iranief wrote:
>
> http://unicomm.fsu.edu/pages/releases/2008_04/18_geometrical_music_theory.html > <http://unicomm.fsu.edu/pages/releases/2008_04/18_geometrical_music_theory.html>
>
> 21st-century music professors...brand-new ways...uncharted musical
> possibilities...unexplored areas of mathematics...a signal achievement
>
> d�j� vu?
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:
>
> iranief wrote:
> >
http://unicomm.fsu.edu/pages/releases/2008_04/18_geometrical_music_the
ory.html
> >
> > 21st-century music professors...brand-new ways...uncharted
> > musical possibilities...unexplored areas of mathematics...a
> > signal achievement
> >
> > déjà vu?
>
> Well, yes, it's the same story Carl was talking about. And
> there's no need to shout about it.
>
> They claim they've found unexplored areas of mathematics,
> which would be interesting if true. It's one of the things
> that isn't supposed to happen in music theory.
>

It is sure true that every application field of mathematics can
stimulate research in mathematics itself. Whether this is so in this
concrete case, I cannot say - but from this point of view, I would
say it is not so wrong to have this article in a science magazine.

But anyway, calling this "a culminating moment in the longstanding
marriage of music and math" seems quite inappropriate to me - unless
they meant it to include the broader field of "geometric music
theory", which includes many works that already exist in this
subject, have been for years, as the works by Elaine Chew (http://www-
rcf.usc.edu/~echew/bibliography/) or the project "Geometry unheard
of" (http://www.vismath.de/vgp/unheard/) - or (the title shows the
connection clearly) Mazzola's "Geometrie
der Töne" (http://www.amazon.de/Geometrie-T%C3%B6ne-Guerino-
Mazzola/dp/3764323531). If the title "a culminating moment in the
longstanding marriage of music and math" could apply to a single work
at all, it would have to be Mazzola's "The topos of music"
(http://www.springer.com/birkhauser/mathematics/book/978-3-7643-5731-3
) (*shamelessselfpromotion*)... It is given as a reference in
Tymoczko's paper, BTW.
--
Hans Straub