MATH CHATS: Math and Music: The Greatest Hits

Professor Gareth Roberts (College of the Holy Cross) discusses how the connections between mathematics and music are numerous, deep, and fun to investigate. Early educational traditions (e.g., Plato and Boethius) grouped music with arithmetic and geometry. A “music first” approach will reveal hidden connections, encouraging a greater appreciation and desire for mathematical thinking. For example, many composers use transpositions, retrogrades, and inversions in their compositions to develop a short theme or motif into a longer, more intricate section of music. These musical transformations naturally lead to mathematical concepts such as symmetry and the dihedral group. Exploring how these transformations intertwine motivates the study of group theory. He will demonstrate how mathematics helps us understand music at a more profound level.