[gtycomb]

The last paragraph has something lovely to take home:

"Stravinsky, in discussing ''the art of combination which is composition'' quoted the mathematician Marston Morse: ''Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and in which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.'' Morse, Stravinsky says, could as well have been talking about music. It is not only in the clarity of things, but in their beauty and mystery that the two arts join."

[the_cat_kittles]

there is infinite complexity in both, i think this is part of the allure of music for me. i keep realizing the “true” nature of something only to later discover an even deeper truth. repeat forever

[TheOtherHobbes]

Very true. People who try to reduce music to math rarely succeed.

It looks like it's a simple problem, then you realise there are edge cases, then you realise the edge cases are where all the interesting detail is, then you realise your models are braindead and actually kind of useless, and then maybe you start again with a better model.

Repeat forever.

[nek28]

I also liked his quote that "the musician should find in mathematics a study 'as useful to him as the learning of another language is to a poet.'"