Music and Mathematics - Connections To Set Theory

Connections To Set Theory

Musical set theory uses some of the concepts from mathematical set theory to organize musical objects and describe their relationships. To analyze the structure of a piece of (typically atonal) music using musical set theory, one usually starts with a set of tones, which could form motives or chords. By applying simple operations such as transposition and inversion, one can discover deep structures in the music. Operations such as transposition and inversion are called isometries because they preserve the intervals between tones in a set.

Read more about this topic:  Music And Mathematics

Famous quotes containing the words connections, set and/or theory:

    “I have no connections here; only gusty collisions,
    rootless seedlings forced into bloom, that collapse.
    ...
    I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn,
    a wind-up plush dodo, a wax museum of the Movement.
    People want to push the buttons and see me glow.”
    —Marge Piercy (b. 1936)

    “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.... Where be your jibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
    —Karl Marx (1818–1883)