Math can be applied to pretty much everything in existence, and music is of no exception. Across this album, The Open University's Alan Graham shares his wealth of knowledge on the relationship between music and math, demonstrates many easy-to-follow theories and examples, and performs several pieces of traditional music with his band Betty's Kitchen. This material forms part of The Open University course MU120 Open mathematics.
The Open University's Alan Graham shares his knowledge on the link between music and math, and his band Betty's Kitchen perform several songs and talk us through their instruments.
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Music and math
This track looks at the relationship between pitch and time in musical notation and illustrates how vibrations produce musical notes and how pitch is determined.
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Pitch and time
This track shows us how tuning forks produce sine waves and uses the oscilloscope to demonstrate how different instruments produce different sine waves.
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Musical frequencies
Alan Graham, of The Open University, explains the mathematical origin of sine curves and also uses a bodhrán (Irish frame drum) for an example.
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Sine curves
Alan Graham of The Open University explains how he used a simple mathematical diagram to play a musical rhythm of 3/2, and demonstrates the beat on the bongos.
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Rhythmic patterns
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Originally published: Sunday, 26 July 2009
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Body text - Content : Copyright The Open University 2009
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