Music: a mathematical offering. (English) Zbl 1119.00008

Benson, Dave

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0-521-61999-8/pbk; 0-521-85387-7/hbk). xiii, 411 p. (2007).

A quite informative and well-written book on the interplay between mathematics and music. Math shows up in both acoustical and compositional aspects of music. In this book the emphasis is very much on the former. The first eight of the book’s nine chapters deal with topics such as waves, harmonics, scales and temperaments, and digital representation and generation of sounds. The final chapter treats appearances of group theory in the structure of musical compositions.
Not only does this book cover basic material thoroughly, it also presents much of interest to those already familiar with the area of math and music. And the author provides a wealth of citations to the often scattered literature on the subject.

Reviewer: Leon Harkleroad (Wilton)

MSC:

00A69

General applied mathematics

Keywords:

music; musical scales; digital music