Math & piano playing

[pianohopper]

I've noticed that a lot of people with heavy backgrounds in math -- engineers, physicists, in particular -- play piano very well, and other instruments too.  People say "math and music are very connected," but I don't really see much of a connection here.  You don't have to use your fingers that much in math, do you? 

your thoughts

[nanabush]

I'm good at math, I find is easy to figure out 3 on 4 and 4 on 5 rhythms.  I do not have to count aloud, I know where the notes should be played, I guess math helps with stuff like that...

[piazzo23]

Yes, you have to know you arabig numbers very well. 
Music is connected to maths but not at purpose. Your brain waves are also connected to maths, but it doesn´t matter if you are bad in maths, you´re not going to die because of that, the waves are there anyway.
So.. if your a musician, it doesn´t matter if you´re good in maths.

[leahcim]

I've noticed that a lot of people with heavy backgrounds in math -- engineers, physicists, in particular -- play piano very well, and other instruments too.  People say "math and music are very connected," but I don't really see much of a connection here.  You don't have to use your fingers that much in math, do you? 

your thoughts

I thought they were pants at maths and that's why they took the easy route?

Firstly, I bet there are more that don't / aren't. It's probably partly to do with particular skills/hobbies or whatever being noteworthy.

Some of the skills / habits will no doubt transfer, but if you play the bongos hoping to get an insight into QED, or the violin to grok GR I wouldn't expect good results nor vice-versa.

As for the connection between maths / music, I wouldn't say it's a connection in the context you seem to be asking..i.e someone's good at both because the subjects are connected.

It's self-evident that there are connections between physics, engineering, maths and music, some trivial [your piano has mass, it's clearly engineered, middle C has a certain fundamental frequency etc]  and some that might not be [like, is there an algorithm that will churn out Chopin Preludes or software/hardware that'll imitate flawlessly an acoustic instrument]

I think in general though - the physicist, engineer, lawyer, doctor or dustbin man who is playing the piano is doing it to relax from their day job, not because of it.

[c18cont]

My two majors were music, a complete minor was math, with some additional work in several science areas...and I taught both in High school in my lifetime....but only music in college...

John

[janne p.]

Music theory is basically math. Good knowledge of music theory is very very helpful when playing the piano, where you can do so many things at once. The ability to grasp many harmonies, phrases and rhythms simultaneously (both when reading sheet music and when performing) requires thinking very fast. See any connection yet? ;-) I've encountered that nearly everyone at my school who are very good at music theory are also pianists or play the piano very well. It is so of course because of the fact that the piano demands a greater theoretical and analytic knowledge/perspective than almost any other instrument (the organ is quite complex as well, but I would say the guitar is the next worst after the piano as the guitar needs in my mind a greater technical skill. The organ's keyboard is, after all, anti-dynamic.) And yes, I know that music is much more than theory and analysis, but this thread was about the connection between math and piano playing, and the piano's theoretical and polyphonic demands/possibilities are more easily conquered if you have an analytic/mathematical way of thinking.

I'll give you a math/music example: I've always been interested in mathematics, and that's what I was studying in high school. I was planning on an engineer's education, but decided at the last moment to go for the music career instead. So after high school I attended a music class at a "folk college" (a kind of preparatory school for college) and didn't know anything at all about music theory. Didn't know what a chord was, how to notate a G in the treble clef...a clef? What's that? Well, you get the point. Anyways, six months later I wrote the music college theory tests where I had to harmonize a melody, analyze a semi-tricky four-part choral with function analysis (?, T-Sp-DD7 etc.) as well as compose a melody for a lyric, a polyphonic second voice for another melody and a four-part chorale for a given melody. The only time I had access to a piano was for the melody-harmonizing part. I scored the highest points of all test writers. This would never have been possible if I didn't have the math-oriented brain and way of seeing things, which enable to see patterns and learn rules and theorems etc. very fast.
(Of course I wrote some of it by ear, in my head, that is; but putting what you hear in your head on paper also requires theoretical knowledge.)

[ako]

I once heard a radio program on autism. Autistic people lack the skills to communicate to the outside world using "normal" means: verbal, written, etc. However, many autistic people are very gifted in music or math or both. Some are so gifted that they're considered savants. Research on these extraordinary savants show that the part of their brains that control language is lacking and the part of their brains that control music and math somehow are enhanced. Researchers are not sure whether this is cause and effect or just a simple correlation. The point of this story is that math and music are contorlled by the same parts of the brain so it is not surprising that many good musicians are also good at math.

[Jacey1973]

I've always been pretty terrible at maths (scraped a pass at GCSE though) but very good at music.

[quantum]

I like math  unfortunately it didn't like me

Either that or the state of our high school education system is considerably lacking.  Before high school I got straight A's in math. 

[parag]

This probably does not answer your query in the abstract sense but here is a wonderful book I actually had the opportunity to teach from 

https://www.maths.abdn.ac.uk/~bensondj/html/maths-music.html

Enjoy,

Parag

[llamaman]

I've hated math. My teacher made us do 2 hours of long division, as someone called the french teacher dumb to her face. I've hated math ever since. And I think math has to do with music in the sense of rhythms. But not much.

[maul]

Piano playing is about expression; expression of one's self through music. Math shouldn't be connected to it, except for a basic beat of what your playing, which can always be modified as needed.

[Tash]

maths is great! i wasn't too bad at it and was really sad when i finished school to not be doing it anymore, but i've found that my music harmony class at uni has been a decent substitute. because the whole chord analysis is so incredibly logic, like it might sound and look like a huge jumble of notes that have no relation to each other, but amazingly they actually have chords names and stuff, so i take the same approach to this as i did to maths.
the connection is more theoretical than through the playing- the whole pitch system and intervals etc is based upon mathematical calculations (something to do with logarithms i think...) and rhythm, putting the right amount of notes and rests into bars is pretty basic maths. uuuummm what else....can't think right now, but i do believe there is an obvious connection with maths, and physics as well. i loved it at school when people asked me what subjects i was doing and i'm like maths extension, music, art, physics.... and they're like wow what a contrast, and i'm like no they're all very much related if you bother to think about it.
don't think about the connection in terms of playing, think about the more technical side of it and the workings, how sound is created, etc.

[trix]

I don't have the time, or frankly, desire to render my thoughts on this topic in any coherent manner at this moment but check this site out:

The Sound of Mathematics:

        https://www.geocities.com/Vienna/9349/

[piazzo23]

the connection is more theoretical than through the playing- the whole pitch system and intervals etc is based upon mathematical calculations (something to do with logarithms i think...) and rhythm, putting the right amount of notes and rests into bars is pretty basic maths.

Totally agree.

[jehangircama]

love physics, maths and music. einstein was almost a concert level violinist and i knew a nuclear physics researcher who was a concert pianist. definitely some relationbetween maths and music. could be that music and maths both require tremendous concentration