Mathematics and Music: Composition, Perception, and Performance - Paperback

by James S. Walker (Author), Gary W. Don (Author)

Mathematics and Music: Composition, Perception, and Performance, Second Edition includes many new sections and more consistent expectations of a student's experience. The new edition of this popular text is more accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds and only high school mathematics is required.

The new edition includes more illustrations than the previous one and the added sections deal with the XronoMorph rhythm generator, musical composition, and analyzing personal performance.

The text teaches the basics of reading music, explaining how various patterns in music can be described with mathematics, providing mathematical explanations for musical scales, harmony, and rhythm. The book gives students a deeper appreciation showing how music is informed by both its mathematical and aesthetic structures.

Highlights of the Second Edition:

• Now updated for more consistent expectations of students' backgrounds
• More accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds
• Full-color presentation
• Includes more thorough coverage of spectrograms for analyzing recorded music
• Provides a basic introduction to reading music
• Features new coverage of building and evaluating rhythms

Author Biography

James S. Walker holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, advised by Louis L. Pennisi. He is a Professor and teaches in the Mathematics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He has published papers on topics in Fourier analysis, wavelet analysis, logic, image compression, image denoising, and mathematics & music.

Gary W. Don is a professor of music theory at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He teaches freshman and sophomore theory and aural skills, and upper-division theory courses. Additionally, he holds a doctorate in music theory from the University of Washington, and taught theory and aural skills at Skidmore College in New York before joining the UWEC faculty.