Math+and+Music+by+Mary+Kate

Mathematics and Music have a natural connection in that **they both are pure objects of the brain**. Neither have any meaning outside of the brain without artificial connections. Music is music and math is math (as oppose to physics being a science and pottery being a form of sculpture).

**Each musical note has a corresponding frequency that is measured in hertz** (cycles per second). Music has two constant values -- the A note 9 keys below the middle C note (frequency of 440 hertz), and the note with the frequency of the ratio of the frequencies between half tones, which comes out to be the 12 th root of 2. The A note an octave higher than the constant A has a frequency of 880 hertz. The A note an octave lower has a frequency of 220 hertz.

**The first person to make the connection between math and music was Pythagoras** (Pythagorean Theorem). In this time, the Greek octave only had 5 notes. Pythagoras stated that **each note is the fraction of a string**. For example, the string that plays approximately a C note is ⅘ the length and 5/4 the frequency of the string that plays an A (the one below C). ¾ the length of the A string plays approx a D, ⅔ plays approx an E, and eventually ½ is the next A.



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