How often do you think of math when you think of music? How often do you think of music when you think of math? Chances are, one might not make you necessary immediately think of the other and while math might not be something everyone thinks they can relate to, music is most certainly something that almost every person identifies with in their life. You may not realize it, but music is math! All of our sound sensory perception is connected to logic and math, and hearing is not left out. We then are listening to math when we’re listening to music, whether we like it or not!
From the complex sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.1 in G Minor to catchy pop songs by Rihanna, music and math are totally related. You don’t necessarily need to have all times tables memorized to be proficient at reading and playing music, but certainly numbers and patterns help us understand the structure of music, how to read it and why it is played the way it is. Math has then historically been a way to teach music, especially through music theory. With thousands of years of music and math being part of the human experience, let’s explore some tangible ways they are linked.
If you are a musician, you understand that looking at a sheet of music is like looking at a bunch of numbers that are giving you beta about how something is played. If you aren’t a musician, now you know that all of those symbols on a sheet of music are sort of like numbers, indicating how something is to be played. Music is divided in sections called measures and each measure has equal amounts of beats in it. Beats can then be considered mathematical divisions of time.
Each piece of music also has a time signature, which gives information about how the piece should be played rhythmically. The time signature then tells you how many beats should be played in each measure of a piece of music. Time signatures like fractions; one number is on the top and another is on the bottom. All of the symbols in music that you see between measures are notes and rests. Notes tell you what to play and for how long and rests let you know when not to play. Notes and rests all have a certain amount of beats to them, so they, like the measures they’re contained within, are all numerically connected to time. Musicians then must understand the value of these fractions (time signatures) and notes in order to correctly count the music they’re playing. As a listener, without having these things as a part of music, it would just sound like irregular patterned noise.
Think about the skills involved with singing No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. This simple song incorporates many basic math skills, including pattern sequencing (through repetitive melodies, rhythm and lyrics), counting and subtraction (by reducing numbers with each verse) and matching and comparing (through changes in pitch and rhythm). And if singing helps young kids understand math better, learning to play a musical instrument, certainly does. Several studies have come out concluding that when young children are exposed to classical music and provided musical instrument instruction, they score higher on hand-eye coordination and spatial temporal cognition tests. Furthermore, the same math concept necessary for understanding fractions, decimals and percentages in math, is the same used for rhythm in music. Children who are taught how to play instruments and read music practice subdividing beats (measurements of time) over and over, which is a tangible way to experience practice with numbers. Learning to play an instrument could honestly help most any of us understand numbers in a very practical manner!
The closest relationship music and math have to each other is that they both use patterns. Music repeats itself in the same song with choruses and sometimes sections of the song outside of the chorus. It also repeats the same amount of beats per measure, as long as the time measure stays the same in the song. Math used patterns to explain conclusions and predict the unknown. Math is quite literally the study of patterns and if one approaches music from a math eye, you can study all of music by using different math concepts, including theory, trigonometry, geometry and calculus. It’s innate for us as humans to like pattern and find comfort in it. It helps us make sense of the world but also music. There has actually been research on certain types of music and why some is more universally popular. Love it or hate it, most pop music is popular and played for a reason – it has a formula for redundancy that many people like.
In the end, music and math are so interconnected that music is a great way to practice math. Bringing music lessons into a child’s life could have enormous results in their math understanding and confidence. Music and math have a place in all of our lives. Encouraging your student to take up learning an instrument or music theory could help them find the discipline it takes to be a mathematician or a musician and it could fuel a life long passion!
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