Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Review MathInt Math&Music PDF
Review MathInt Math&Music PDF
between China and the other cultural Spheres that Pythagoreans referred to
centres (p. 212). Yes, we should distin- when required to swear (Fig. 1).
guish among claims, beliefs, and his- It was perhaps because he was im-
torical facts. pressed by the mathematical consis-
Fig. 1
Sometimes Joseph does not notice tency of consonance that Pythagoras
that he disproves his own argumenta- devised the idea that Number is the
tion. He complains about Eurocen- and calculation in music," while in substance of the Universe.
trism because it cannot bring itself to Paris the Forum dealt with "Mathe- Be that as it may, on an instrument
face the idea of independent develop- matical logic and musical logic in the consisting of a single taut string vibrat-
ments in early Indian mathematics, twentieth century." ing on a sounding board and fitted with
even as a remote possibility. But he These three topics are covered in a keys that make it possible to select suit-
does not concede this possibility to the fairly balanced way in this book, five able lengths of the stli_ng being vibrated,
Greeks with regard to the earlier cul- articles dealing with the first topic, one obtains with the Tetraktys the in-
tures of the Near East. By all means, it seven with the second, and four with tervals known as octaves, fifths, and
is a too condescending attitude to con- the last. All these articles are of signif- fourths. Figure 2 represents such a sin-
cede only "that the Greek approach to icant interest, whether from a histori- gle-stringed instrument (e.g., the Vosges
mathematics produced some [!] re- cal or theoretical point of view. Bringing spinet, still used today by certain folk
markable results" (p. 346). them together in the same publication groups in Eastern France) with the cor-
Thus the reader is left with mixed sheds magnificent light on the dialogue responding modern names of the notes.
feelings. While Joseph rightly rejects the and mutual enrichment that Mathe- Musical instruments such as the
hegemony of a Western version of math- matics and Music have developed over tetrachord lyre may also be built with
ematics, he is inclined to replace it by the centuries [1] [2] [3] [4]. four strings having these same lengths
another one, although he explicitly The first article, by Manuel Pedro (L, L/2, L/3, L/4) that produce simulta-
states that "since the first edition we are Ferreira, deals with the musical the- neous sounds. The respective tensions
no closer to gathering further definitive ory constructed by Pythagoras. Two are adjusted so that the sound pro-
evidence of transmission of mathemati- sounds from the same taut string are duced by each string is that of the
cal knowledge to Europe" (p. 354). said to be consonant when they are string having the same length on the
pleasing to listen to simultaneously. In monochord.
Institut for Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie the Greek cultural arena of that period The article describes the improve-
Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte such sounds are produced by lengths ments brought to this theory by Philo-
Technische Universit~t Berlin of string that are inversely proportional laus and others. The chief result of that
10587 Berlin to the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. These period was obtained by Archytas, who
Germany compose the famous Tetraktys (1 + demonstrated the need for unequal
e-mail: ehkn0132@mailszrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de 2 + 3 + 4 = 10), a diagram of figured divisions in order to obtain all the con-
numbers symbolising pure harmony, sonants comprised in an octave. He
the "vertical hierarchy of relation be- recognised the importance of arithmetic,
tween Unity and emerging multiplic- geometric, and harmonic means. This
Mathematicsand Music.A
Diderot MathematicalForum
edited by G. Assayag, H.-G.
Feichtinger, and J. F. Rodrigues Length L/4 : obtained sound So]3,fourth of R63,and octave of Sol2
BERLIN, HEIDELBERG,SPRINGER-VERLAG,2002,
Length L/3 : obtained sound R63,fifth of Sole
288 PP., US $84.95. ISBN 3-540-43727 4
Fig. 3
allowed him to enrich the range of as new ways of combining rhythms. such a project. Yet, once rid of its ab-
sounds used and their associated in- However, this culmination of the surd objective, this statement aptly
tervals (Fig. 3). pythagorean musical base that had de- sums up the concept of music prevail-
The reference made to Aristox- veloped over many centuries eventu- ing in Renaissance and Baroque times,
enus---a pupil of Aristotle who totally ally degenerated in the following cen- founded on number and its symbolism,
rejected pythagorean harmony in fav- tury because it proved to be inadequate a source of beauty and harmony. It ac-
our of a musical theory based on the for responding to the new aesthetic tually sets it in an oriental tradition
continuous sounds perceived by the trends that were appearing as well as the considerably older than the Greeks,
ear, as well as on the tensions of the practical needs of musicians. Those who that considered number as the handi-
strings and their relaxation t i m e - - were concerned with the tuning of their work of God who ordered all things in
shows the rich diversity of musical keyboard instrument were led to con- measure, number, and weight (Wisdom
thinking in Ancient Greece. sider the problem of temperament [5]. of Solomon 11.17) and on which all the
However, the most interesting as- Having had one's mind brilliantly work of Man rests. Kronecker's well-
pect of this article, whose numerous stimulated by such an article, one is led known phrase "God created number,
references provide ample scope for to wonder about the Byzantine evolu- all the rest is the work of Man," draws
digging deeper, is certainly the de- tion, geographically so close to the its inspiration from the same source.
scription of the rich musical evolution Greek source; regrettably, however, In fact, Kircher's book develops the
flowing from the Greek roots into the this aspect is not touched upon in the musical ideas of the minim monk Mar-
Latin world and right up to the four- article. One wonders too what was inus Mersennus (Marin Mersenne), in
teenth century of our era. In St. Au- the contribution of the ancient manu- particular the combinatory approach
gustine's De Musica, written at the end scripts passed on by the "sons of the contained in his Harmonia Univer-
of the fourth century, rhythms are also Greeks," as the Arabs of the time called salis, written in 1636. The article un-
classified according to their propor- themselves. Fortunately the article refers fortunately does not speak of Mersenne's
tions (the proportional notation used to the influence of Arabian and Persian activity as the science correspondent
today came much later). Then in the music in the Cantigas of the Iberian of the whole of Europe, nor of his
ninth century, Carolingian policy in Peninsula, and the contribution of the creation in 1635 of the Academia
educational and ecclesiastical matters reading of the ancients, thanks to the Parisiensis, the ancestor of the future
defined new practices. It encouraged translation in the twelfth century of the Acad~mie des Sciences; nor does it
the use of neumes that indicate the in- musical treatise by A1 Farabi. mention the measurement of the speed
flexions of the voice, but not the pitch Eberhard Knobloch's article pro- of sound that he obtained in 1636, nor
of the sounds. The names Do, Re, Mi, vides a novel answer by introducing his discovery of the higher harmonics
Fa, Sol, etc., appeared with Guido the concepts of Athanasius Kircher, of a string. No mention is made either
d'Arezzo in the eleventh century, de- who in 1650 wrote Musurgia Univer- of his systematic use of the notion of
rix4ng from the syllables at the begin- salis. Kircher quotes Hermes Tris- frequency, introduced at the time by
ning of the stanzas (voces) of a hymn megistos, the mystical author who was Galileo Galilei. Mersenne was a student
addressed to St John the Baptist, writ- so loved by the Medicis and Pico della of the latter's work and was familiar
ten around 770 A.D. The notes (claves) Mirandola: "Music is nothing else than with the law that gives the frequency
are also designated by letters, a prac- to know the order of all things." This of the fundamental v i b r a t i o n f of a vi-
tice that is still in use today in English- very pythagorean concept postulates brating string having a length L with a
speaking countries (La = A, Ti = B, that Music is a part of Mathematics linear mass p and with tension F:
Do = C, . . . ) and in Germany (with (and consequently a science). For
some specificities). Finally, polyphony Kircher, this is a relevant concept f=~- .
created new needs for harmonic when seeking to help someone having
mastery, the response coming from virtually no knowledge of the mastery This formula is merely mentioned in
Philippe de Vitry in the fourteenth cen- of sounds to acquire an in-depth knowl- the Discorsi, written in 1638 by
tury with his Ars Nova: in this work he edge of musical composition. Pythago- Galileo, the son of the musician Vin-
defined new musical notations as well ras doubtless would have disowned cenzo Galilei, and it was written in this
70 THEMATHEMATICALINTELLIGENCER
m o d e r n form only in 1715, by Brook tury bell-ringers and the rules laid history of acoustics, a w o r d invented
Taylor. The limited part of Mersen- down by Fabian Stedman [7] is but a by Joseph Sauveur, who professed
ne's w o r k mentioned in the b o o k is short step, but one which none of the mathematics at the Coll~ge de France
nonetheless of major interest and sets articles in this b o o k dares to take. On from 1686. Dumb until the age of seven
the record straight regarding a number the other hand, the approach taken and deaf for the whole of his life, it is
of misconceptions as to the history of does shed light on musical analysis, as he who looked more closely at the ob-
science at that time. may be seen in the article by Laurent servation made by Mersenne that there
In his H a r m o n i a U n i v e r s a l i s , Mer- Fichet, and makes it possible to extend exist higher harmonics: a string may
senne sets out the table of all the values one's horizon, as in Marc Chemillier's vibrate in several parts around nodes
of the number of permutations with n article dedicated to ethnomusicology. that remain faxed. The b o o k makes
elements up to n = 64. He discusses The formula mentioned earlier re- scant mention of the w o r k of Bernoulli
non-repetitive arrangements P ( n , p ) = lating to the fundamental frequency of or Euler. It remains almost completely
n ( n - 1) . . . (n - p + 1) and combina- a string, in turn allows a better under- silent concerning the discovery in 1747
tions C ( n , p ) = P ( n , p ) = P ( n , p ) / P ( p , p ) . standing of the problem of tempera- by d'Alembert of the partial differential
He solves the problem of calculating the ment. It consists of seeking to divide equation of vibrating strings:
n u m b e r of combinations presented by an octave into twelve equal intervals,
~2y _ ~2 02Y
a given type of repetitions. This he does and therefore to identify rational num-
Ot2 Ox 2 "
thirty years before Leibniz succeeds in bers that simultaneously come as close
obtaining, with a few errors, the same as possible to the irrational real num- It is in fact the solution of this equation
results in his "schoolboy's essay" D e bers 2 (1/12), 2 (2/12), 2 (3/12), . . . , 2 (11/12), that makes Sauveur's discoveries un-
Arte Combinatoria, and well before being aware that a trained ear will per- derstandable. However, research ac-
the combinatorial work of Fermat and ceive any deviation that is too signifi- tivity on sound was so extensive at the
Pascal. If n is the maximum n u m b e r cant. This leaves plenty of margin for time that to describe it would be an al-
possible of notes for a song c o m p o s e d n u m e r o u s systems, and the remarkable most impossible task. We would need
with p different notes, of which rl dis- article by Benedetto Scilneni pre- to mention Wallis, Newton, La Hire,
tinct notes appear once, r2 distinct sents the choice p r o p o s e d by Gio- not forgetting Bach, Rousseau, and so
notes appear t w i c e , . . . , and using in seffo Zarlino in his work L e I s t i t u t i o n i many others; one would necessarily
fact r = r l + r 2 + 9 9 9 +r,,~ distinct harmonicae [8], published in 1558: have to be selective. The selection
notes in all, Mersenne gives the total made in the b o o k is particularly rele-
10/9, 9/8, 6/5, 5/4, 4/3,
n u m b e r of possibilities for the corre- vant, but makes one want a new Fo-
3/2, 8/5, 5/3, 16/9, 9/5.
sponding songs: rum, to take the question deeper by re-
Galileo's father quarrelled with ferring to the activities of other authors
n!
Zarlino because he preferred 18/17 to who have been left out.
rl!r2! . . . r m ! ( n - r)!
10/9. But of course, whatever choice The article by Jean Dhombres ex-
For 22 possible notes, of which 7 dis- one makes, the practical issue is the plores another major historical mile-
tinct ones are repeated according to tuning of instruments, in particular stone, by referring to the interest shown
the type 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Mersenne harpsichords with several octaves and by Lagrange around 1760 in musical
shows that there are 3,581,424 possible the largest possible number of tones. texts and the theory of instruments. In
songs. Is it therefore not understand- The article referred to here mentions h i s R e c h e r c h e s s u r la n a t u r e et la p r o p -
able that it was the analogy with the the remarkable w o r k undertaken on a g a t i o n d u s o n he gives a definition of
combinatorics derived from gaming these questions by Giuseppe Tartini, the integral of a function as a limit. No
that led Mozart to devise a musical Daniel Strfihle, and Christoph Gottlieb more number theory and geometry. He
game allowing the players to produce Schr6ter. One of the most fascinating shows that the same differential equa-
waltzes by throwing dice [6]? This then aspects is the connection with the so- tion appears in the vibrations of strings
poses the question of the link between lution to Pell/Fermat's equation in Tar- and those of air. He discovers the or-
musical creativity and chance. One tini's T r a t t a t t o d i M u s i c a : thogonal relationship of sine and cosine.
may indeed w o n d e r if certain of Yet Lagrange cannot be considered to be
x 2 - 2 y 2 = 1.
Haydn's compositions were not in- the inventor either of series or of the
spired by similar methods. This point In fact, this becomes obvious when Fourier analysis. It was indeed Fourier
is not mentioned, even though his 41st one realises that the above also leads to who recognised the universality of the
piano sonata is quoted in the article by coming as close as possible to the irra- calculus discovered by Lagrange in his
Wilfrid Hodges and Robin J. Wilson tional 2 (6/12) = ~ with a rational num- study of musical sounds. From a math-
dedicated to musical forms. Speaking ber, a classic problem of diophantine ematical point of view, the next stages
of combinatorics raises the possibility analysis, which is much simpler than in this millennial adventure, which are
of using the group of permutations of the previous problem of simultaneous not covered in this book, are the march
objects that one arranges and com- approximation of the twelfth roots of 2. towards distributions [10] and the
bines . . . . F r o m there to seeing Galois's The b o o k is incomplete if one con- deeper understanding of spectral analy-
theory in the practice of sixteenth cen- siders it from the point of view of the sis [11] and group representations [12].
9 2005 Springer Science ~Business Media, Inc, Volume 27, Number 3, 2005 73