Are there any good books on musical theory from a mathematical standpoint? Is "Music theory and mathematics : chords, collections, and transformations", edited by Jack Douthett, Martha M. Hyde, and Charles J. Smith, one on them?
Math and Music theory books
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0There is also this related post on MO: [Books on music theory intended for mathematicians](http://mathoverflow.net/q/263202) – 2017-02-27
8 Answers
There's Music: a mathematical offering by Dave Benson. It can be downloaded from his website.
There's Philip Ball's the Music Instinct, although this would be more from the science point of view than the mathematical one.
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0@CristianGarcia: Not working... Now [here](http://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/d.j.benson/html/maths-music.html). – 2018-02-16
If you like category theory and topos theory you might want to look at Mazzolas, Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory, and Performance
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4This is by far the most mathematically intense book on music theory ever written. – 2012-02-16
I don't know which level you mean, but Mathematics and Music seems nice. There is also Musimathics, which seems more advanced. [Disclaimer: I don't have first-hand experience with either book.]
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2I've actually flipped through Musimathics a long time ago; for mathematicians/scientists/engineers who have been interested in music for a long time, there's not a lot of new stuff in there, but it's a terrific book for people with some e$x$perience/interest in math or the natural sciences who want to learn it all properly. – 2011-05-03
Besides the ones already mentioned, there is A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice by Dmitri Tymoczko, which takes an orbifold approach.
If you want to understand scales from a mathematical/dsp perspective, and why a certain scale is the most "natural" for the music of a given instrument or culture, you should check out Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale by Sethares.
I don't think it's explicitly mathematical, but Peter Westergaard's An Introduction to Tonal Theory might be appealing (I haven't read it myself).
There is also a blog which seems to have much about it:
http://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/category/westergaardian-theory/
Don't know the book you cite, but some good references are:
Mathematical Theory of Music, by Franck Jedrzejewski Also by him, and Tom Johnson, Looking at Numbers, might interest you as well Of course the one mentioned above Topos of Music, though in my opinion tends to take things a little too far from music. Music and Mathematics: from Pythagoras to fractals, from Oxford University Press Fractals in Music, by Charles Madden. These last two seem to me a lot more adequate as music theory books.
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