Music and Mathematics
Music, Mathematics, and Science. What kind of music are we
going to talk about. How familiar is everybody with 20th century
"art"/"concert"/experimental music ?
Music can:
- entertain.
- experiment.
- speculate.
- deliver a world view (a philosophy).
Historical relationship between mathematics and music.
- Pythagoras (600 BC) and the music of spheres
- Rameau and his Treaty on Harmony: his explanations
were based on acoustics.
- the use of the golden mean
Aesthetic trends and how do they are reflected in the choice
of musical tools by composers.
- Medieval music and the contrast between
"human" and "divine" passing of time.
- Baroque and classical periods.
Tonal system as a hierarchy.
Relationship between music, science, philosophical and social attitudes.
Monteverdi (1567-1643) and Galileo (1564-1642) as contemporaries;
Bach (1685-1750), Haendel (1685-1759), Newton (1642- 1727), and the
Enlightment;
John Cage (1912-1992), indeterminism and quantum mechanics
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