How Music and Mathematics Relate

By: David Kung, The Great Courses

Narrated by: David Kung

Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Great minds have long sought to understand the relationship between music and mathematics. Both involve patterns, structures, and relationships. Both generate ideas of great beauty and elegance. Music is a fertile testing ground for mathematical principles, while mathematics explains the sounds instruments make and how composers put those sounds together.

Understanding the connections between music and mathematics helps you appreciate both, even if you have no special ability in either field - from knowing the mathematics behind tuning an instrument to understanding the features that define your favorite pieces. By exploring the mathematics of music, you also learn why non-Western music sounds so different, gain insight into the technology of modern sound reproduction, and start to hear the world around you in exciting new ways.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2013 The Great Courses (P)2013 The Teaching Company, LLC

Outstanding job of relating Music & Math. A+

If the title is appealing to you, then you will enjoy this course. Insightful, entertaining and just wonderful.

Amazing teacher

It’s a pleasure to listen to this very smart professor who is versed in music and math. I am so fortunate to have come across his lectures. Thank you so much.

A Bravura Course, First Time Though and on Revival

As someone who "performs" math professionally, and music as an amateur, this course brings the two together perfectly. The first lecture, "Overtones - Symphony in a Single Note" really sets the leitmotif for the entire course. That is, if we understand the harmonics (physics) of a single note from a string or woodwind, we can understand scales, composition, etc.

I will say, the course does work as an audiobook, but only if you have experience with Fourier transforms, i.e. the decomposition of a time-series into frequency components. I've since watched the video series, and although it is lovely, is really not required given the above caveat. My first experience via Audible was great. So too with the video "revival". Bravo!

Loved it . Thanks David.

I would recommend this book to every music lover. Perhaps some will expect it to be too technical but one doesn't have to try to grapple with the maths. The book can be enjoyed and its depth of the analysys appreciated wuthout followingvtge maths. I enjoyed it for both. I will try to encourage my less mathematically inclined friends to listen even if only for the appreciation of another dimension of music. However, if you see a music philosopher then the book shoujd not be missed. Give it t a try. Just for the fun of it.

Need to pay close attention

This is definitely a course that requires the supplemental pdf and your close attention; casual listening simply isn't enough. Even still, it is worth your time. I think Prof. Kung really pulls the lectures together well, and concludes by showing us that, even from an early age, all of us have an affinity towards patterns and music, which are highly related to mathematics.

You would do better with the video version

The Great Courses offer many courses in both audio and video. Sometimes the video portions of a lecture are of minor importance and the audio serves perfectly well. In this course, there are many instances where I wish I could have seen what Professor Kung was doing, including graphic representations of tones and overtones.
Professor Kung states at the beginning that a large part of the course will be devoted to understanding the mathematical formulas that can be used to described various aspects of music, especially the use of sines, cosines, and various sophisticated mathematical formulas. These are very hard to follow in the audio, although they can be seen in the course book. I really wasn't much interested in the math, but that's my own choice. Others might really enjoy it.
All that being said, I still give the course a 3. Kung has lots of interesting and understandable information and I am glad I waded through it. If I had a better knowledge of math and had seen it on video, I am sure it would have rated a 5.

NEEDS TO BE VIDEO VERSION !!!

Audible did NOT work for this highly complex course. The lecturer used numerous visual aids which i could only hear and seeing them would have helped me better comprehend this material.
David Kung is a genius and i am definitely not intelligent enough to understand half of the examples he uses.
I maybe got 10%-15% of what the take home points were. With the visuals i may have gotten up to 40%.

Painful to listen to due to severe confusion.

Sound engineering suffers, good content

For a series on music and sound it was alarming how many sound production gaffs survived the process. Examples stated to be in stereo aren't. The Bach forward / retrograde duet excerpt was complete silence. Interesting subject with a knowledgeable presenter, but the audiobook seems a mere afterthought

Very interesting

I learned a lot. I am a amateur pianist and former engineer. I found the explanation of the relationships between math and music understandable and interesting even though I only listened in the car. I hope to listen again soon with the visual aids available. Well done.

You have got like math to enjoy this book.

I gave this book at 5 star rating because I tend to like math as a subject. I think this book is ideal for any person that enjoys math and physics. You don't have to be a musician but it helps. If you are mostly interested in music but don't like math and physics, this book is probably not for you. The book does come with a pdf, which is important. I listened to the audio version of the book, and math doesn't come over well on audio, but the pdf helps back up the audio. Here's what I benefitted from the most: I now understand about what it means to be well-tempered and how different tunings evolved. I learned that no piano is perfectly tuned. (But's it's okay) Also, I have a better understanding of Group Theory now. I've been struggling with understanding symmetry and group theory, and the author talked about how some composers have used group theory in composing music, knowingly or not. Some used the concepts of Group Theory in music composition even before the theory was "invented". . The theory is not so abstract to me now. So, if you are a math/physics person you are likely to enjoy this book. I hope you as much as I did.