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Matthew Goolsby

Music and math, what a match!


Gentle Haven Music Blog, Question Mark, Matt Goolsby

Hopefully the subject of today's blog caught your attention. (This is 2018's installment #3 blog)

You may be a wiz at math or struggle with it like many people do. But, did you know that music and math have a tremendous commonality?

It's true. One of the great geniuses of Western European music is: Johann Sebastian Bach, or, J.S. Bach as he's commonly known in classical music circles.

Mr. Bach lived a few hundred years ago and wrote music for his church services on a weekly basis. Now, I play almost every week at church, but writing music every week is astounding! And we're not talking about a simple song. No, he wrote magical musical pieces that have intricate counterpoint in them. They're still studied in any music school worth its salt because they demonstrate the composer's ability to weave intricate phrases and scale structures together to make a compelling and ear-pleasing work.

I mention this because of the symmetry of math and its sibling: music. Math itself is a very profound discipline to study and use. Imagine highways, computers, space missions, or even medicine being formulated or used without it. Impossible!

If you've ever struggled with a complex equation in geometry or algebra, then you know that the brain power required to solve problems is also the same that can build a beautiful melodic composition.

Imagine that for a moment; a beautiful piece of music has been composed, written, arranged, and then performed by highly analytical processes within our brains. Music can bring one to tears, inspire, sadden, and evoke any number of emotions.

Now for the practical point of this blog: How do you, the musician, use these analytical processes to get out of your musical ability all that you can?

I'm going to leave you with that point until the next blog. Give it some thought....

Gentle Haven Music Blog, Question Mark, Matt Goolsby

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