There are many connections between mathematics and music, and it seems that many people who enjoy mathematics also play musical instruments. This week we looked at the tones we hear in almost all western music. Almost all western music uses 12 tones in a scale. Why 12, rather than some other number? The tones we hear are based on sine waves of different frequencies, and it turns out that the combinations of tones that sound most pleasing to us are based on ratios of small integers. Splitting one octave into 12 equal steps gives a very close approximation to these ratios. Still, there are many other tunings used in other countries around the world.
This week's links:
a short and sweet look at our 12 tone scale
Wikipedia entry for Music and Mathematics
Hear a tuning based on pure ratios ("Just Intonation")
No comments:
Post a Comment