Mathematics and Music

Mathematics and Music: Composition, Perception, and Performance, Second Edition includes many new sections and more consistent expectations of a student’s experience. The new edition of this popular text is more accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds and only high school mathematics is required.

The new edition includes more illustrations than the previous one and the added sections deal with the XronoMorph rhythm generator, musical composition, and analyzing personal performance.

The text teaches the basics of reading music, explaining how various patterns in music can be described with mathematics, providing mathematical explanations for musical scales, harmony, and rhythm. The book gives students a deeper appreciation showing how music is informed by both its mathematical and aesthetic structures.

Highlights of the Second Edition:



Now updated for more consistent expectations of students’ backgrounds

More accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds

Full-color presentation

Includes more thorough coverage of spectrograms for analyzing recorded music

Provides a basic introduction to reading music

Features new coverage of building and evaluating rhythms