Aarush Ram Anandh VIII-B 3/4/2020

How music can be interpreted mathematically

And how humans understand it

introduction
I was inspired to take this topic for my IA when I realized small connections between
music and mathematics when I started to research a little deeper and experiment with
songs of different genres .I later realized that music is maths in the form of frequency
ratios and the right spacing of the notes.

The aim of this IA/Document Is to help you understand mathematics and music
differently using simple logic and rules of math and physics.

Background information
The first relation between music and math was found by Pythagoras in the form of
music intervals, the ratios between the frequency of the notes and how the ratios and
frequencies combine to form a pleasing sound.

For instance think about this why do only certain notes sound good when played at
the same time to form a chord. Now take a look at this wave form below.

This is a wave form of an E 8 chord which is basically the E note and the same E note
an octave higher. The reason this sounds good is because both the frequencies
uniformly meet again and again at the same point causing it to not sound dissonant.
Another example is the C chord which consists of the notes C E and G.
below is the waveform for the C chord. Which is a “sweet sounding chord”

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Aarush Ram Anandh VIII-B 3/4/2020

If

you notice again in this chord the notes again uniformly meet at a certain point.
Sounding melodious to the human ear.

This property was discovered by Pythagoras and later used by Mozart. Mozart was a
very successful music composer and would use the properties described by
Pythagoras to compose music.

Data Collection and investigation

A simple concept we need to understand in investigating further is that in any string

instrument the frequency of the note is equal to the number of times the string
oscillates per second. For example the low E string on a guitar vibrates at a frequency
of 82.41 HZ (hertz) Which means that the string vibrates about 82 times per second.

Music consists of different scales. Scales are basically a set of notes which sound
good together and not dissonant. Some of scales of western music are Gmajor,
Fminor, A#minor excreta.

The scale that we will be using for this investigation is the C scale which comprises
of the notes C D E F G A B the scale has no sharps or flats which is why we will be
using it for our research.

Frequency ratios
frequency ratios are basically the ratio between the frequency of 2 notes played one
after the other. In a guitar the ratio of the notes can be calculated y dividing the
original string length by the string length of the note.

Below is a table of the ratios of the

frequencies between notes

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As seen above we can use the ratios alone to make a musical piece. The simple
Thumb rule is that the simpler the ratio between 2 notes the better the notes sound
together.

The next part of our investigation will be investigating the piece ode to joy by
Beethoven .

IA not continued due to lac of apparatus due to corona

lock down.