Is music an exact science?? Anyone....

I started a discussion about whether or not music is an exact science ie maths and music. This was the reply I got

ReBorN: Ritual how can music be a science? In maths 1+1=2 it doesn't matter how you look at it 1+1=2. Look at any song and it is open to the artists interpretation. example I play DKTW and I think it sounds good. I write it down as an absolute. You come and play it as I have written it but it sounds different. We both have the same musical instruments and both play as it was written in the same time signature but it sounds different. why? because you cannot interpret what I have written the way I make it sound unless you have heard me play it. Otherwise all Beethoven symphonies would sound the same no matter who plays them. I like to call the difference in sound color and color makes the difference in music. Maths 1+1=2 Music 1+1=whatever you can make it sound.

Well I've been to some classical concerts, playing Beethoven, and each time sounded different. Different directors, different musicians, same music, different sounds... I think that while music can de reduced to exact math, frequencies, and so on... music itself is much more. The slight variations you can introduce in tempo, tone, duration of the notes, pitch... some would call it the 'soul' of the music, of the player... It's what we use to communicate what cannot be said with words. Of course some people does not have anything interesting to say, but other... man oh man other they do!!!

Goosfraba.

Well, there are 2 parts to music. One is the mathematical form of it. Where what is written is what is played. If 2 different people put in the same piece of music into the same midi player it would sound the same regardless. But, there is also an artistic side to music that a computer can't relate. Putting your soul into music, and relaying a message within the mathmatical sceme is what the art part is about. Music can be written as an exact science, but every musician has a different level or way of communicating what is written. Music is an exact science, where as musicianship is not.

Fleet,

Music is not a science. It's an art. There are some fairly clear cut mathematical relationships in my culture's music but that does not make music a branch of mathematics. And math is not science. Try to rephrase what you're asking because the question you propose seems silly or sophomoric to me. Just because a subject use elements of another field does not magically transmute that subject into that field.

Dave M.

The answer is no. However, science can describe how what is played sounds, and our method of creating music that sounds good. Western music is only one of many. Our tuning is entirely subjective, based on A at 440 Hz. It could be anything we like it to be. Others tuning isnt remotely similiar to ours, and some are very similiar. Its cultural. We use science to refine and define what it is WE play. Our theory, all of it, isnt objective science, its entirely subjective. Although science can be used in describing our subjective preference/theories.

In college I had a class in Atonal music. Gulp. Give that a try if you think music is scientific. Although as I mentioned, science can be used in its description/usage. Some composers have written entire symphonies based on mathematical equations. And to be truthfull, they sound just fine. Intricate, detailed, interlocking, and dry as an 80 years olds unused nut.

I have a degree in mathematics and I can play the guitar and clarinet.

I can honestly say, from my heart, that while music theory can be deconstructed mathematically, music is not science.

The theory of the brain-halves is a myth, and even as a metaphore it is a bad idea, since IQ and creativity are very similar skills.

Let's not confuse applied mathematics (a.k.a. physics) w/ music theory. And let's not dilute the artistic (a.k.a. creative) aspect of music w/ said music theory. I guess you could boil it down to two schools of thought; i.e. people who take a purely theoretical approach vs. people who take a purely artistic approach; i.e. the people who make the music that most of us know and love. And there are probably some people who attempt to mix both approaches. Now I don't know too much about this left-brain vs. right-brain stuff but I do know this. When my creative juices are flowing best I am in a frame of mind far removed from any theoretical and/or mathematical notions; I am totally involved w/ my instrument(s) and my soul. Now granted, the artist is using what he/she has learned through experience in the process of composing, but its purely transparent from the artists perspective if he/she is completely in the moment of creating.

WRT Performing; here you can see where theory is applied in the forms of technique and choice. This *is* a physical realm and so the tools available to the performer are ostensibly visible.