Music and Math?

Even those who are not musicians or mathematicians know that the two subject matters are related. Well, sort of. It is much easier to find math in music than music in math (literally speaking). Music is written on stanzas of five lines, divided into different types of time measures, notes are measured by fractions, and instruments have a various number of holes to produce different sounds. All of this, even to the non-musicians, seems like common sense. Most people just don't associate music and math together because one is a fine art and the other is a science.

The part that is incredible, and almost mind blowing, is to think that pitches are also determined by math. In circa 500 BCE, Pythagoras figured out the arithmetical ratios for perfect musical intervals. This is oh about 2,400 years before calculators and he is breaking ground on mathematical concepts that we still use today. In the most simplistic form, he figured out that a 2:1 ratio will render the same pitch, only one octave up. This may seem logical, but it is actually much more complex than that. Also, as a reminder, this is 500 BCE.

In ancient Greece, music was a part of life everywhere and it was considered to be very powerful. It was to believed to be so powerful that some philosophers, such as Plato, did not believe that it should be used here in this world. Since there were no CDs or iPods in those days, the people of the Renaissance did not have much of an idea as to what music sounded like in the days of ancient Greece. All they had were some artifacts that described music and some pieces of instruments. So music of the Renaissance was not so much the rebirth of ancient Greek music, but more of the ideas of music.

The people of the Renaissance explored some with music and made huge advancements. However, it was still extremely different than most music today. Many pieces today, especially mainstream music, has no organization or control and is very open for interpretation. Music of the Renaissance was still considered art and usually followed the principals of organization. One could listen to a piece and hear the balance, unity, focal area, and dynamics. Those principals of organization are not promised in every piece created today. One of the biggest ideas of the Renaissance was control and that could definitely be found in music. Tempo was controlled and even the dynamics were not that dramatic. I doubt many people today have a “Music of the Renaissance” playlist on their iPod, but I know that if the people of the Renaissance heard our music, they wouldn't even consider it music.