MUSIC AND GEOMETRY

Three US music professors from the University of Florida have devised a new way of analyzing and classifying music through its representation through geometric figures. Researchers have developed the "theory of geometric music," a method that translates musical language into contemporary geometry, as published in the latest issue of the journal Science.

The method consists in taking a series of notes, such as chords, rhythms and scales, and classifying them so that they can be grouped into "families". Music teachers assign a mathematical structure to each of these families, in such a way that they can be represented by points in complex geometric spaces. The different types of classification produce different geometric figures, and allow to reflect how musicians have understood music throughout the centuries. Researchers hope that their theory helps to analyze and understand music better.

The teacher considers that the geometric spaces that they generate with their method help to understand the music better thanks to a "powerful set of tools" that allow, for example, to visualize a classical music concert. "The most rewarding aspect of this research is that we can now see that there is a logical structure linked to many musical concepts," adds the professor, "And we can represent the history of music as a long process of exploring different symmetries and geometries" .