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Mathematical Music

From Antiquity to Music AI

Nikita Braguinski

$69.99

Paperback

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English
Focal Press
14 March 2022
Mathematical Music offers a concise and easily accessible history of how mathematics was used to create music. The story presented in this short, engaging volume ranges from ratios in antiquity to random combinations in the 17th century, 20th-century statistics, and contemporary artificial intelligence.

This book provides a fascinating panorama of the gradual mechanization of thought processes involved in the creation of music. How did Baroque authors envision a composition system based on combinatorics? What was it like to create musical algorithms at the beginning of the 20th century, before the computer became a reality? And how does this all explain today’s use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in music? In addition to discussing the history and the present state of mathematical music, Braguinski also takes a look at what possibilities the near future of music AI might hold for listeners, musicians, and the society.

Grounded in research findings from musicology and the history of technology, and written for the non-specialist general audience, this book helps both student and professional readers to make sense of today’s music AI by situating it in a continuous historical context.

By:  
Imprint:   Focal Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 138mm, 
Weight:   200g
ISBN:   9781032062198
ISBN 10:   1032062193
Pages:   136
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Primary ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Nikita Braguinski is a musicologist and historian of technology. He studied musicology at the University of Cologne and wrote his PhD in media theory at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, a postdoctoral fellow of the Music Department at Harvard University, and most recently a postdoctoral researcher at Humboldt University where he wrote this book. He plays flute, piano, and guitar (but only when nobody is listening). His past musical experience ranges from playing in a rock band to jazz compositions, symphonic music, and electronic dance music.

Reviews for Mathematical Music: From Antiquity to Music AI

This wide-ranging book, accessible to those without extensive background in either music or mathematics, provides a fascinating history of the interrelationship between these two. Braguinski explains, with concrete examples, how recent musical AI is innovative in many ways, but how it also rests on deep foundations built in centuries past. Nick Montfort, Professor of Digital Media, MIT, and Director of The Trope Tank


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