Are there any good books on musical theory from a mathematical standpoint? Is "Music theory and mathematics : chords, collections, and transformations", edited by Jack Douthett, Martha M. Hyde, and Charles J. Smith, one on them?
2026-02-23 11:38:42.1771846722
On
On
On
On
On
On
On
Math and Music theory books
8.2k Views Asked by Bumbble Comm https://math.techqa.club/user/bumbble-comm/detail At
8
There are 8 best solutions below
1
On
I don't know which level you mean, but Mathematics and Music seems nice. There is also Musimathics, which seems more advanced. [Disclaimer: I don't have first-hand experience with either book.]
1
On
If you like category theory and topos theory you might want to look at Mazzolas, Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory, and Performance
0
On
Besides the ones already mentioned, there is A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice by Dmitri Tymoczko, which takes an orbifold approach.
0
On
If you want to understand scales from a mathematical/dsp perspective, and why a certain scale is the most "natural" for the music of a given instrument or culture, you should check out Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale by Sethares.
0
On
Amiot, Emmanuel. 2016. Music Through Fourier Space. Springer.
From the Springer website:
This book explains the state of the art in the use of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of musical structures such as rhythms or scales. In particular the author explains the DFT of pitch-class distributions, homometry and the phase retrieval problem, nil Fourier coefficients and tilings, saliency, extrapolation to the continuous Fourier transform and continuous spaces, and the meaning of the phases of Fourier coefficients.
Perspectives of New Music 49/2 (Summer 2011) is devoted almost entirely to "Tiling Rhythmic Canons", including articles by many of the authors mentioned in other posts.1
1 The origin of the mathematics in this book can be found in Dan Vuza's four-part article "Supplementary Sets and Regular Complementary Unending Canons" in Perspectives of New Music (vols. 29/2–31/1). It is the founding article of an area of research ("Tiling Rhythmic Canons") for many of the authors mentioned here, including Tom Johnson, Guerino Mazzola, Emmanuel Amiot, Carlos Agon, and Moreno Andreatta.
0
On
I have not the reference but the Great Leonahrd Euler wrote a book on the subject.Considered at the 18th century as too mathematical for the musicians and too musical for the mathematicians.
Ps:Make a comment if you have found something.
0
On
Maybe the The Structure of Atonal Music by Allen Forte
found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFKMvFzobbw
There's Music: a mathematical offering by Dave Benson. It can be downloaded from his website.
There's Philip Ball's the Music Instinct, although this would be more from the science point of view than the mathematical one.