The Science of musical sound

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1. rramadassFeb 2026
   > but I do spend a lot of time listening to music. I've spent a lot of money on audio equipment.

   This is a great domain to motivate oneself to delve deeper into Mathematics. For example;

   1) What parameters do you look at in audio equipment before you buy?

   2) Somebody is trying to sell you "Hi-Res" music and equipment; Are they worth the money? Why? Why Not?

   All of the above need mathematics to comprehend at even a basic level. There are both complicated objective (physics/mathematics) and subjective (our auditory system) parameters to understand eg. logarithms, harmonic series, frequency modulation, tuning, impedance, human hearing frequency range and sensitivity etc.

   Having some mathematical idea of the above not only saves you money but also helps you enjoy music "optimally".

   References:

   Sound: A Very Short Introduction by Mike Goldsmith (also see his other related book on Waves) - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sound-9780198708445?...

   The Science of Musical Sound by John R. Pierce. An old classic (also checkout his other books on Waves, Signals and Information Theory). They are all written in a semi-technical and clear manner for the general audience. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Pierce

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2. emptybitsNov 2018
   I hear you. My $0.25 ... I bet the expert authors of many music theory books would be capable of thinking in mathematical terms but (now I'm guessing) there is likely some undeserved "ew, yuck, math!" culture in the arts so rather than turn off their audience, they avoid talking about the quantitative underpinnings of why things sound the way they do.

   Two more enjoyable books on the math and physics of music (though, again, probably not far enough up the tree of abstraction for chords):

   "The Science of Musical Sound" by Pierce (lovely little book, not too deep though, quite coffee tableable)

   "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" by Benade (old book, considered a classic, reads like a science text)

   Good luck!

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3. elihuOct 2016
   I don't have any good web links, but a couple of books that I've found useful are The Science of Musical Sound by John R. Pierce and Harmonic Experience by W. Mathieu. (The former is more focused on sound and scientific theory, whereas the latter is more focused on understanding music in a way that would be useful to a musician or composer.)

   On the Sensation of Tone by Helmholtz is also worth checking out if you want to understand where a lot of the modern understanding of just intonation comes from.

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