Related papers: One categorization of microtonal scales
The mathematics of musical intervals and scales has been extensively studied. Vastly simplified, our ears seem to prefer intervals whose frequency ratios have small numerator and denominator, such as 2:1 (octave), 3:2 (perfect fifth), 4:3…
A Pythagorean scale is a mathematical encoding of a musical scale as a finite list of numbers of the form 3^b/2^a. Previous work of the first author discussed the 2-step property as a way to measure which Pythagorean scales are the most…
Musical scales are used throughout the world, but the question of how they evolved remains open. Some suggest that scales based on the harmonic series are inherently pleasant, while others propose that scales are chosen that are easy to…
The impossibility of a transposable 12 semitone tuning of the octave arises from the mathematical fact that $2 \times 2^{7/12} \neq 3$ i.e., the second harmonic of the fifth can not exactly match the third harmonic of the fundamental. This…
If our aesthetic preferences are affected by fractal geometry of nature, scaling regularities would be expected to appear in all art forms, including music. While a variety of statistical tools have been proposed to analyze time series in…
We present a statistical analysis of music scores from different composers using detrended fluctuation analysis. We find different fluctuation profiles that correspond to distinct auto-correlation structures of the musical pieces. Further,…
A test on the numerical accuracy of the semiclassical approximation as a function of the principal quantum number has been performed for the Pullen--Edmonds model, a two--dimensional, non--integrable, scaling invariant perturbation of the…
The statistical precision of a chord method for estimating fractal dimension from a correlation integral is derived. The optimal chord length is determined, and a comparison is made to other estimators. These calculations use the…
We develop aspects of music theory related to harmony, such as scales, chord formation and improvisation from a combinatorial perspective. The goal is to provide a foundation for this subject by deriving the basic structure from a few…
We supplement the result of the first part of the work with estimates of the integrals of the difference of subharmonic functions in measure with some deterioration of the absolute constants, but these estimates have the form of a…
A new musical scale devised by the author, based on natural logarithms, is described. Most of the logarithmic pitches bear no correspondence to the twelve tones of the ancient tuning system attributed to Pythagoras, based on ratios of whole…
We will discuss how certain group theory structures are found in music theory. Western music splits the octave into 12 equal tones called half-steps. We can take this division further and split the octave into 24 equal tones by splitting…
We obtain the exact-order estimates for approximations by Fourier sums, best approximations and best orthogonal trigonometric approximations in metrics of spaces L_s, 1\leq s<\infty, of classes of 2\pi-periodic functions, whose…
The method of second order relative spectra has been shown to reliably approximate the discrete spectrum for a self-adjoint operator. We extend the method to normal operators and find optimal convergence rates for eigenvalues and…
Scales, sets of discrete pitches that form the basis of melodies, are thought to be one of the most universal hallmarks of music. But we know relatively little about cross-cultural diversity of scales or how they evolved. To remedy this, we…
For a given irrational number $\alpha$ one can define an irrationality measure function $\psi_{\alpha}^{[2]}(t) = \min\limits_{\substack{(q, p)\colon q, p \in\mathbb{Z}, 1\leqslant q\leqslant t, \\ (p, q) \neq (p_n, q_n) ~\forall…
In this paper, we consider the MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm for identifying the locations of small electromagnetic inhomogeneities surrounded by random scatterers. For this purpose, we rigorously analyze the structure of…
The Sinc approximation is a function approximation formula that attains exponential convergence for rapidly decaying functions defined on the whole real axis. Even for other functions, the Sinc approximation works accurately when combined…
The Lagrange spectrum $L$ is the set of finite values of the best approximation constants $k(\alpha)=\limsup_{|p|,|q|\to \infty}|q(q\alpha-p)|^{-1}$, where $\alpha\in \mathbb{R}\setminus \mathbb{Q}$. It is a classical result that the pairs…
Following (Shevtsova, 2010) we introduce detailed classification of the asymptotically exact constants in natural estimates of the rate of convergence in the Lindeberg central limit theorem, namely in Esseen's, Rozovskii's, and Wang-Ahmad's…