When you think of some of your most musical friends, you might think of people who are a little zanier and more off-the-cuff. People who maybe aren’t the most planned and calculated and people who might not love or be great at math. Oddly enough though, there is a huge correlation between math and music. You or the musicians you can think of might not have a deep-seated love for math, but all of our sound sensory perception is connected to logic and math. We then are listening to math when we’re listening to music, whether we like it or not!
From the complex sounds of Beethoven’s Symphony to catchy pop songs by Ariana Grande, music and math are totally related. What’s even more intriguing is that both math and music have origins that go back and overlap thousands of years of human civilization. Of course, not all math is completely relevant to music. Memorizing long division might not be the most helpful for math, but certainly numbers and their relation to one another, and patterns help us understand the structure of music, how to read it and why it is played the way it is. Math is a huge part of teaching music and music theory, for that reason. Curious to know more? Below are 3 ways math and music are intertwined.
Different sounds are made from different weights and vibrations. A low frequency of vibration has a low pitch and to our ears it sounds like a deep voice or growl, whereas a high frequency has a high pitch like a fire alarm or a whistle. Some frequencies are so high that we can’t hear them, for instance, dog whistles. All of this sound frequencies are measured by something called a hertz, which is a measurement of vibrations by second, so, 20 hertz means 20 times per second.
Pitch, which is a part of sound vibrations humans can hear, can be accomplished by all sorts of instruments. Everything from a wind instruments, to stringed instruments, to voices has pitch and whether you’re singing along to Justin Bieber in your car, or you’re reading a piece of music to let you know how to play Hey Jude by The Beatles on guitar, in music there are certain pitches you’re trying to reach that are dictated by notes in a measure. When you’re above the note trying to be reached, you’re something called sharp and when you’re below the note you’re trying to reach, it’s called flat. Sound intensity and decibels are also a part of the math of frequency. For more about how math, sounds frequency and pitch are related ready here!
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.
Ever heard of Baby Beethoven? It’s a part of the Baby Einstein series and is meant to expose kids to classical music starting at age 0. This is because there have been several studies that 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. This is really where the benefits and music and math overlap are obvious. The same math concept that is necessary for understanding fractions, decimals and percentages, is the same used for rhythm in music. Musicians who read music is required to continually subdivide beats to correctly interpret and play music. Children who are taught how to play instruments and read music are then practicing subdividing beats over and over, thus strengthening their mental-physical connection with numbers. The discipline it takes to learn how to play an instrument is something that prepares us all for stronger math skills.
Music is very helpful for learning math whether students struggle with math or not. If you’re a parent or teacher who understands music, perhaps bringing a little music teaching into your home or classroom could help your student(s) better identify with math. And if you aren’t musical, but you want to better understand the connection and power of math in music for you and your student(s), perhaps you should text or dial up some musician friends to have them come do a basics lesson. Both music and math have a place in everyone’s lives!
