Just about anybody who’s anybody can tell you about the math in music. Between time signatures (three-quarter, four-four, cut-time…), fractional notes (whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, sixty-fourth…), and the rest of the nomenclature (octaves, measures, counting…), music is nothing without math.
Even if you take out the technical aspects, the popular discussion is rife with numbers. Literally. I mean, how many of you have bought a 45 of your Number 1 hit that you just heard on the top 50* countdown? (*These being the top 50 songs as measured by the Billboard 100.)
Again, anybody can talk about the math in music, but can they talk about the music in math?Continue Reading “Can You Hear the Music of Mathematics?”
How Math Saved My Life: From High School Disappointment to Hall of Fame Speech
In short, they’d be bland bios.
I didn’t want to bore the kids. I wanted to leave them laughing in the aisles with self-deprecating humor. At the same time, I wanted them on the edge of their seats, enthralled by the dramatic arc of a true-life story.
Of course, I’d abide by tradition by acknowledging the importance of education, but let’s be honest, what did they care about my career? So, I left that out.
I knew I was coming out of left field, but, in the words of those 20th-century British philosophers, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
Because of this daring, I suspected the students would become unsettled. I hoped they would Continue Reading “How Math Saved My Life: From High School Disappointment to Hall of Fame Speech”