[OT] Poetics of Simple Maths in Music

mathseive's icon

Has anyone ever read this book: The Poetics of Simple Mathematics in Music, by Pozzi Escot? Could you recommend it?

I am looking for a book about the applications of relatively basic maths to music (eg number theory, geometry etc., but not fractals or anything mroe complicated). Any other recommendations?

thanks
tom

Jean-Francois Charles's icon
mathseive's icon

Thanks for that Peter, i'll look into that one on Geometry. Looks like a serious course! I've read parts of the Allan Forte book, but it's not really for me i'm afraid. I'm not really into atonal music & have never found much musical inspiration in pc set theory!
I'm more interested in the applications of number theory, series and geometry.
thanks
tom

tim_thompson@mac.com's icon

Great bibliography Peter!

Peter Castine's icon

There have been some efforts in applying the foundations of Set
Theory to diatonic music, replacing modulo-12 with modulo-7 and going
from there. Afraid I don't recall much in the way of details. David
Lewin's _Generalized Musical Intervals & Transformations_ spends a
bit of time on tonal materials (including Scolica Enchiriadis!), but
his work is relatively demanding on the mathematics side and his
focus is more strongly on atonal repertoire.

On the geometry/topology side of the fence, Thomas Noll has been
working on taking Mazolla's ideas further and he's had the odd
publication. Much of his work is in German, I don't know if that's a
barrier for you.

Oh, and of course there's Schillinger.

Anyway, good luck!

-- P.

On 28-Nov-2006, at 13:50, Tom Giles wrote:

>
> Thanks for that Peter, i'll look into that one on Geometry. Looks
> like a serious course! I've read parts of the Allan Forte book,
> but it's not really for me i'm afraid. I'm not really into atonal
> music & have never found much musical inspiration in pc set theory!
> I'm more interested in the applications of number theory, series
> and geometry.
> thanks
> tom

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Stefan Tiedje's icon

Tom Giles wrote:
> but not fractals or anything mroe complicated). Any other
> recommendations?

Fractals are not complicated, they are usually very simple, but the
result is complex. There is a relation between simplicity, complexity
and beauty I think...
(Sorry don't know the book, but the title sounds promising...)

Stefan

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Peter Castine's icon
mathseive's icon

Before this thread wanders even more off topic than it was to begin with, i am just interested in finding out a little more about the applications of series like the Fibonacci sequence, or other ideas in number theory, geometry etc. It's not that fractals etc are too complicated - i'm just not interested at the moment!
Cheers
Tom

mathseive's icon

I've just looked Schillinger up in Wikipedia & he looks very interesting. Peter: Could you recommend me an article or short book that would give me an overview/intro of his method(s)?
thanks
t

Steven Miller's icon

There are two new books (one not quite yet released) by Gareth Loy
(MIT Press) entitled 'Musimathics.' I'm not sure if they're
completely relevant (awaiting my copies in the mail) to your specific
interests, but it seems likely that there might be something there.

A couple books on this general subject to avoid, or at least take
with a generous amount of skepticism and critical filtering are
"Fractals in Music" and "Fib and Phi in Music" - both by Charles
Madden (High Art Press). They are confusingly written, highly
subjective, and in more than a few places just plain wrong, though
there are some interesting tidbits buried in them in a few places.
Just my opinion, mind you...

On Nov 29, 2006, at 4:21 PM, Tom Giles wrote:

>
> Before this thread wanders even more off topic than it was to begin
> with, i am just interested in finding out a little more about the
> applications of series like the Fibonacci sequence, or other ideas
> in number theory, geometry etc. It's not that fractals etc are too
> complicated - i'm just not interested at the moment!
> Cheers
> Tom
>

----
Steven M. Miller

Associate Professor of Contemporary Music
College of Santa Fe
Contemporary Music Program
1600 St. Michaels Drive
Santa Fe NM 87505
http://pubweb.csf.edu/~smill
(505) 473-6197

SFIFEM                Atrium Sound Space        OVOS
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~smill/ovos.html

mathseive's icon

i'll look into this on the web and see what i come up with.
cheers
tom

Jeff Kaiser's icon
Kim Cascone's icon

another interesting book:
'Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise'
by Manfred Robert Schroeder
ISBN: 0716723573

companion website to G. Loy's books (Vol I and II):
http://musimathics.com/

Ignotus's icon
Ignotus's icon

Schroeder's book is both interesting and frustrating, at least for
those of us who only read the scores but don't play in the league. Not
very generous in terms of actually explaining much of the math, IMO.

Edward Lorenz's The Essence of Chaos is a really good intro to chaos
theory for non-specialists. That and Ian Stewart's Does God Play Dice
could be good stepping stones to Schroeder's book--and thay are both
more tightly focused.

Martin Gardner wrote several columns on fractal and aleatoric music,
particularly on f-1 noise, which are accessible to, as Gardner always
has clear explanations of what is going on (whether you understand it
or not). Some of these columns appear in the collection Fractal Music,
Hypercards, and More (may be out of print).

Clifford Pickover has also written extensively on fractals and other
mathematical curiosities, though mostly for visual productions.
Usually there is code in the books, generally very compact and easy
enough to port to favorite programming language.

The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants, by P. Prusinkiewicz and A.
Lindenmayer, though it is again a visual book (and a feast), lays out
the techniques for L-systems (named after Lindenmayer) step by step.

-- Paul

On 11/29/06, Kim Cascone wrote:
>
> another interesting book:
> 'Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise'
> by Manfred Robert Schroeder
> ISBN: 0716723573
>
>
> companion website to G. Loy's books (Vol I and II):
> http://musimathics.com/
>

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Peter Castine's icon

On 29-Nov-2006, at 22:12, Paul Hertz wrote:

> Emo Lendvai, probably.

Lendvai, that's it. Thanks. I thought the first name was Erno, though
(or, to be a real nit-picker, Ernő, if the o-with-double-acute come
through on the forum)

-------------- http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/ -------------
Peter Castine +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
Universal Binaries on the way
iCE: Sequencing, Recording &
Interface Building for |home | chez nous|
Max/MSP Extremely cool |bei uns | i nostri|
http://www.dspaudio.com/ http://www.castine.de

Kim Cascone's icon

On Nov 29, 2006, at 1:45 PM, Paul Hertz wrote:

> Ian Stewart's Does God Play Dice
I found this book very disappointing...

I still find Gleick's 'Chaos' the best pop-sci book on chaos...I
blasted through the book in a few days after finding a used copy
while in Hawaii a few years back...easy and clear reading and has
enough math to start mucking about with in maxmsp

Roger Alsop's icon

and
Debussy in Proportion : A Musical Analysis by Roy Howat

>another interesting book:
>'Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise'
>by Manfred Robert Schroeder
>ISBN: 0716723573
>
>
>companion website to G. Loy's books (Vol I and II):
>http://musimathics.com/
>
>
>!DSPAM:2000,456df24f355901515046854!
>
>
>
>!DSPAM:2000,456df24f355901515046854!

--
Roger Alsop,                 Phone:    (61 3) 9685 9395
Lecturer in Sound,                Fax:    (61 3) 9685 9356
School of Production,            Mob:    0414 246 943
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234 St. Kilda RD.,
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Victoria, Australia, 3006             E-Mail:
r.alsop@vca.unimelb.edu.au

Ignotus's icon
Ignotus's icon

Yes, Gleick is a good introduction and fun to read. If you haven't
read Lorenz's book you might find that interesting, too, as an
introduction to the mathematical concepts--plus it has his butterfly
essay, and some interesting bits of science history. Mitchell
Waldrop's Complexity was one other book I read, researching the topic,
but found it rather gossipy and less informative than I'd hoped.

On 11/29/06, Kim Cascone wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 29, 2006, at 1:45 PM, Paul Hertz wrote:
>
>
> Ian Stewart's Does God Play Dice I found this book very disappointing...
>
> I still find Gleick's 'Chaos' the best pop-sci book on chaos...I blasted
> through the book in a few days after finding a used copy while in Hawaii a
> few years back...easy and clear reading and has enough math to start mucking
> about with in maxmsp
>
>
>

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goodparleyandorfing's icon

Is it possible for these missing posts to be restored? I posted a request in the 'misc' section which hasn't been answered