I am aware of the math and physics behind music. But when I was thinking of music theory I was thinking of harmony and melody and other aspects of composition. It takes engineering to build a piano but we would say that studying piano involves engineering would we?
I don't think people studying music theory are spending a lot of time working out sine wave analysis of string lengths, even though as you mention it lies as a core understanding of all string instruments. Music theory like melody, and harmony, rhythm and scales are highly influenced by culture and I'm not sure it is referred to as a science. But again maybe some do, I don't have much contact with academics. I'll ask my singing teacher who went the classical Peabody study route. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > > Most professors of music would tell you that theory is a > > > science and the application of it is an art. That's what > > > I was pointing out. > > > > I'm not sure this is true. I tried to do a search on this and > > can't find anything to support more than a loose connection. > > No one can get any type of music degree that is a BS, it is > > always a BA not matter how technical your focus. That doesn't > > mean that science can't study aspects of music but I don't hang > > out with music professors so you may be right. > > He is right. Much of music theory is mathematical, for > one thing (ever heard of Pythagoras?). Then there's > acoustics, a scientific discipline one of whose branches > is musical acoustics. And of course there's psychology, > which has at least some hard-science aspects. > > You can go at music either way, from the artistic side or > the scientific side, and there's a big area of overlap in > the middle. > > Try searching for "physics of music." >
