Music In Math

    

 

     Being in the middle school choir was easy. We learned music rote. Rote means you learn it by ear. The alternative to rote music, is reading music. Reading music is called sight reading. I was so excited for high school chorus. But little did I know that sight reading is the way you read music in high school. Middle school did not prepare me for that. Throughout high school I got better at reading sight music. But there was one thing I couldn’t help but notice. That reading music was closely related to math. I brought this up to my high school choir teacher and she confirmed my observation. She told me that often in college if you are a music major you are required to take several math courses. Who knew? Anyways, she told me about the circle of fifths. The circle of fifths is the relationship among the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys. More specifically, it is a geometrical representation of relationships among the 12 pitch classes of the chromatic scale in pitch class space. More simply, the circle of fifths uses intervals, which is something we use in math. An interval in math is a set of real numbers with the property that any number that lies between two numbers in the set is also included in the set. An interval in the circle of fifths has to do with pitch. Starting at any pitch, ascending by the interval of an equal tempered fifth, one passes all twelve tones clockwise, to return to the beginning pitch class. The circle of fifths is really hard to understand and my chorus teacher barely went into detail about it for that reason. But it uses math! That was fascinating to discover. So, throughout my choir experience I continued to find more examples of how math is a part of music. Subdivisions are a great example of this. Subdivisions are essentially just fractions. Most music is played in 4/4 time. Each beat equals a quarter note, and there are four quarter notes in a whole measure (or bar) of 4/4 music. When one evenly divides the quarter note in two, you get two eight notes. This could be used to explain fractions! When you divide ¼ you get 1/8. When you evenly divide the quarter note in four you get four sixteenth notes! This is the same math we learn in school, only it’s also music. When people ask, “When are we going to use this?” during a math lesson, well, you may use it in music. (If they become a musician of course). Most people don’t think of music as a very mathematical topic, but it truly is!