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Hey all,
I’m writing a roughly 20 page paper for submission to the Journal of Mathematics and Music and I was curious if these boards are an appropriate place to post and get feedback.
As I am no affiliated with any university, I don’t have access to professional feedback on CT nor can I upload to Arxiv (I’m a physicist, not a mathematician).
If this is not the place and/or there is a better place and you could guide me there I’d be very thankful.
On the other hand if this is the place to engage in discussion about the topics I bring up in the abstract, I’ll post the draft and I’d be thankful as well!
Sincerely,
Ricardo Javier Rademacher Mena
www.linkedin.com/in/ricardo
www.thevniversity.com
“Using the traditional accidentals of western music theory, a musical space dubbed accidental space is introduced in three contexts. The first is as an algebra reminiscent of what is used in quantum mechanics; this version places special significance on palindromic modes such as Dorian. The second is as a network reminiscent of what is used in graph theory; this version shows clear patterns regarding chord quality clustering. The final context is as a category with modes as objects and accidentals as morphisms; this view has the advantage of providing a singular context with which to understand the two former views. “
I’m not sure that we have any specialists on the mathematics of music among the more regular nLab contributors (apologies if I’m forgetting someone).
Have you been in touch with any of the people named in this post? They might be able to give some advice. John Baez often speaks of his interest in music (although I don’t think he makes claims to being a musicologist) and might know of some avenues where you could get some useful feedback; I’ll shoot him an email pointing to this thread. Also Noam Elkies at Harvard might be able to give advice.
Hi Todd,
Thanks bunches! I will seek out the people you mentioned in the link.
But if Dr. Baez could get a hold of my paper, then boy howdy; he’s been a personal hero of mine since the Usenet days and his crackpot index and then again as I struggled to learn GR! My paper also deals intimately with the symmetries of C12 (the chromatic scale) and how they spontaneously break down to a C7 heptatonic scale, symmetries being something I know Dr. Baez has fluency and interest in. ;)
Thanks again for everything and I will reach out to these people!
Hi! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying my stuff. I can’t at all promise any interesting comments on your paper, but you can email it me if you go to the bottom of my webpage, look up my email address and pass the intelligence test required to properly use it.
You may already know Dmitri Tymoczko’s book A Geometry of Music, but if you don’t, I think you should read it, or at least some of the papers on his website. I also highly recommend the work of Alexandre Popoff, e.g. Towards a categorical approach of transformational music theory.
Hello Dr. Baez,
Thanks so much and will do!!!!
Yes, I’m familiar with both their works but as you may see, my approach is (AFAIK) nothing like it.
Whether this constitutes a good or a bad thing I leave up to our emails and thanks again! :)
Assuming I passed the test, sent.
Feel free to send me a copy as well, but, as with John, I can’t promise any interesting comments.
Hello Dr. Willerton,
Thank you and (ideally) sent.
I have given the entry music theory a brush up as a kind of invitation to add further content or everybody’s favorite text on mathematical music theory as reference there.
If I may, on the math side:
Tymockzo’s geometry
http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Music-Counterpoint-Extended-Practice/dp/0195336674
Lewin’s transformations
http://www.amazon.com/Generalized-Musical-Intervals-Transformations-David/dp/0199759944/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459889676&sr=1-6&keywords=lewin+music+theory
Babbits PC sets
http://www.mta.ca/pc-set/pc-set_new/
lerdahl’s tonal pitch space
http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Pitch-Space-Fred-Lerdahl/dp/0195178297
On the music side:
Piston’s classic harmony
http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Fifth-Walter-Piston/dp/0393954803/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459890096&sr=1-1&keywords=harmony+music+theory
Schoenbergs’s classical tone rows
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Musical-Composition-Arnold-Schoenberg/dp/0571196586/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459890186&sr=1-1&keywords=schoenberg
Millers jazz harmony vol. 1 and 2
http://www.amazon.com/Modal-Jazz-Composition-Harmony-Vol/dp/B000AMQILS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459890014&sr=1-2&keywords=ron+miller+modal
Russel’s jazz Lydian Chromatic Concept
http://www.amazon.com/Lydian-Chromatic-Concept-Tonal-Organization/dp/0970373902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459890130&sr=1-1&keywords=lydian+chromatic+concept+of+tonal+organization
The Scale Omnibus
http://www.saxopedia.com/the-scale-omnibus/
The Chord Wheel
http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459890310&sr=1-1&keywords=chord+wheel
Fastlane, would you add those yourself to the entry? It would also help future readers if you add a few words here and there to set context (but that’s optional).
I went ahead and remodeled the page a bit. It’s not formatted in line with the rest of the site but hopefully someone can tidy that up.
I only listed books such that a person could in principle go out and buy the reference. I can also include papers and journals though that gets a bit more “fine grained” and “specialized” in terms of topics; if you or others give me guidence in the types of papers you might be interested in reading about (Like Noll’s work with words or Chew’s work with spirals), I’ll be happy to share my resources.
One issue however is that it is listed under the context “philosophy” which I don’t think is universally appropriate. For eg, Mazzola’s work is definitely philosophy; it’s like 60 pages of standup philosophy (just watched Mel Brooks’ “History of the World pt 1” and I have to resist the urge to call it something else) before we ever touch or define Topoi. On the other hand, Balzano’s work on framing the Chromatic scale as C12 = C3 x C4 or Lewin’s transformation are framed in a strictly mathematical context with music only serving as the background.
I don’t know what category within N-lab best fits mathematical music, but I don’t feel it’s philosophy.
Thanks! I’ve done some reformatting.
Being realistic about this entry, I think, the hypothetical audience is supposed to be people looking for an introductory overview on mathematical music theory. So a guideline may be to include sources that one might want to recommend to such a person or else papers that deserve to be (better) known.
Sorry, for filing under ’philosophy’ for want of a better label but one might provisorily take it in the classical sense of including any serious enterprise that strives for knowledge.
” think, the hypothetical audience is supposed to be people looking for an introductory overview on mathematical music theory. […] or else papers that deserve to be (better) known”
I tried to focus on text written by people behind the big swaths of MMT over the last 50 years or so as I see it. I will supplement that with modern texts teaching or expanding upon those theories as well as some of the less popular, but still relevant, investigations I’ve come across.
I’ll try to stay true to format but it may need another pass by your hand once I’m done….
As for philosophy, no biggie.
Should there be any movement in terms of discussion or discovery to categorize it otherwise, time will tell.
I’ve updated and cut and paste a bunch of references from my papers so there is a need for editing… sorry for that.
I moved this discussion from nJournal > Articles to Atrium > Preprints, since the paper in question is not a submission to the nJournal.
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