mathematics and music

Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

Explore the connections between mathematics and music at the La La Lab exhibition.

Explore the connections between maths and music!

In a previous article we found a Möbius strip in Bach's music. This time it's a doughnut shape.

Discover (and listen to) the Möbius strip that's hidden within one of Bach's famous canons.

Given there's a finite number of notes on a scale, can we still find a brand new melody? Perhaps they've all been written already!

The funeral of the great flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía this week reminded us of the mathematical and musical reasons we love flamenco.

The universal machine is a musical about Alan Turing, the mathematician and WWII code breaker who was convicted of homosexuality in the 1950s, chemically castrated as a result, and died young in mysterious circumstances. How do you turn such a story, and the maths in it, into a musical? We talked to writer and director David Byrne, Richard Delaney, who plays Turing, and Assistant Director Natalie York.

Many things make a noise when you hit them, but not many are commonly used to play music — why is that? Jim Woodhouse looks at harmonic and not so harmonic frequencies and at how percussion instruments are tuned.

Fractals are a treat for your eyes, but what about your ears? Dmitry Kormann, a composer/keyboardist from São Paulo, Brazil, explains how he integrates fractal-like patterns in the very structure of his music, to obtain beautiful results.

As an electronic musician Oli Freke has always been fascinated by sine waves, so much so that he's created a song based on them for the Geekpop festival, which is currently taking place on the Web. In this article he explores his song, touching on ancient Greek mythology, strange piano tunings and Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Sun is no longer singing solo and is now part of a stellar choir
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  • Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

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