Re: Mathematics, Prime Numbers, & Looping with the EDP

[Jon Southwood <jsouthwood@gmail.com>]

There's an interesting book called "Automatic Music" by Tom Johnson
that describes building recursive processes for building melodies and
such. An interesting read and provides fodder for lots of
experimentation.

Joseph Schillinger wrote a gigantic book called "The Mathematical
Basis for the Arts". His "Schillinger Method of Composition"
definitely falls under the realm of defining a sort of musical
algebra.

Certainly the writings of just about any serial composer of the 20th
century is replete with a certain amount of musical alegra/calculus
(though, more accurately probably "geometry"). The composer Robert D
Morris has a book called "Composition with Pitch Classes" that has
some very interesting ideas. He also had an interesting article in The
Open Space Magazine that touches on a few of the ideas from that book
in a more easily digestible form (at least for me). The article was
called "Some things I learned (didn't learn) from Milton Babbitt, or
why I am (am not) a serial composer."

Cheers,

Jon Southwood

P.S. I only mention these things as possible resources for adding
tools to one's compositional arsenal, not as an endorsement of any
particular theory's/technique's suitability to any artist's idiom.

On 6/21/05, Todd Pafford <calenlas@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/21/05, Hartung, Kris <kris.hartung@hp.com> wrote:
> > Lot's of mathematical ideas here for looping. Pretty cool.
> 
> Hm.  I wonder if it'd be possible to work out rules for musical
> arithmetic.  Operations like adding, subtracting, multiplying, or
> dividing two musical phrases.  After that it'd be a simple leap to
> create a musical algebra.  Calculus might be harder...give a whole new
> definition to 'roots' music. :)
> 
> I find there is a certain beauty in the relationships between various
> numbers (11*11 = 121, as a very simple example) and I wonder if
> similar beauty or symmetry would arise with regard to music
> manipulated in this manner.
> 
> Sounds like we need to find us a mathematics major before we go too
> much further. ;)
> 
> Todd
> 
>