This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, MCM 2019, held in Madrid, Spain, in June 2019. The 22 full papers and 10 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. The papers feature research that combines mathematics or computation with music theory, music analysis, composition, and performance. They are organized in topical sections on algebraic and other abstract mathematical approaches to understanding musical objects; remanaging Riemann: mathematical music theory as “experimental philosophy”?; octave division; computer-based approaches to composition and score structuring; models for music cognition and beat tracking; pedagogy of mathematical music theory. The chapter “Distant Neighbors and Interscalar Contiguities” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, MCM 2011, held in Paris, France, in June 2011. The 24 revised full papers presented and the 12 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The MCM conference is the flagship conference of the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music. This year’s conference aimed to provide a multi-disciplinary platform dedicated to the communication and exchange of ideas amongst researchers involved in mathematics, computer science, music theory, composition, musicology, or other related disciplines. Areas covered were formalization and geometrical representation of musical structures and processes; mathematical models for music improvisation and gestures theory; set-theoretical and transformational approaches; computational analysis and cognitive musicology as well as more general discussions on history, philosophy and epistemology of music and mathematics.

Both modern mathematical music theory and computer science are strongly influenced by the theory of categories and functors. One outcome of this research is the data format of denotators, which is based on set-valued presheaves over the category of modules and diaffine homomorphisms. The functorial approach of denotators deals with generalized points in the form of arrows and allows the construction of a universal concept architecture. This architecture is ideal for handling all aspects of music, especially for the analysis and composition of highly abstract musical works. This book presents an introduction to the theory of module categories and the theory of denotators, as well as the design of a software system, called Rubato Composer, which is an implementation of the category-theoretic concept framework. The application is written in portable Java and relies on plug-in components, so-called rubettes, which may be combined in data flow networks for the generation and manipulation of denotators. The Rubato Composer system is open to arbitrary extension and is freely available under the GPL license. It allows the developer to build specialized rubettes for tasks that are of interest to composers, who in turn combine them to create music. It equally serves music theorists, who use them to extract information from and manipulate musical structures. They may even develop new theories by experimenting with the many parameters that are at their disposal thanks to the increased flexibility of the functorial concept architecture. Two contributed chapters by Guerino Mazzola and Florian Thalmann illustrate the application of the theory as well as the software in the development of compositional tools and the creation of a musical work with the help of the Rubato framework.

An approachable introduction to elementary sheaf theory and its applications beyond pure math. Sheaves are mathematical constructions concerned with passages from local properties to global ones. They have played a fundamental role in the development of many areas of modern mathematics, yet the broad conceptual power of sheaf theory and its wide applicability to areas beyond pure math have only recently begun to be appreciated. Taking an applied category theory perspective, Sheaf Theory through Examples provides an approachable introduction to elementary sheaf theory and examines applications including n-colorings of graphs, satellite data, chess problems, Bayesian networks, self-similar groups, musical performance, complexes, and much more. With an emphasis on developing the theory via a wealth of well-motivated and vividly illustrated examples, Sheaf Theory through Examples supplements the formal development of concepts with philosophical reflections on topology, category theory, and sheaf theory, alongside a selection of advanced topics and examples that illustrate ideas like cellular sheaf cohomology, toposes, and geometric morphisms. Sheaf Theory through Examples seeks to bridge the powerful results of sheaf theory as used by mathematicians and real-world applications, while also supplementing the technical matters with a unique philosophical perspective attuned to the broader development of ideas.

There is a recent and increasing interest in harmonic analysis of non-smooth geometries. Real-world examples where these types of geometry appear include large computer networks, relationships in datasets, and fractal structures such as those found in crystalline substances, light scattering, and other natural phenomena where dynamical systems are present. Notions of harmonic analysis focus on transforms and expansions and involve dual variables. In this book on smooth and non-smooth harmonic analysis, the notion of dual variables will be adapted to fractals. In addition to harmonic analysis via Fourier duality, the author also covers multiresolution wavelet approaches as well as a third tool, namely, L2 spaces derived from appropriate Gaussian processes. The book is based on a series of ten lectures delivered in June 2018 at a CBMS conference held at Iowa State University.

The purpose of this book is to provide a concise introduction to the mathematical theory of music, opening each chapter to the most recent research. Despite the complexity of some sections, the book can be read by a large audience. Many examples illustrate the concepts introduced. The book is divided into 9 chapters.In the first chapter, we tackle the question of the classification of chords and scales. Chapter 2 is a mathematical presentation of David Lewin's Generalized Interval Systems. Chapter 3 offers a new theory of diatonicity in equal-tempered universes. Chapter 4 presents the Neo-Riemannian theories based on the work of David Lewin, Richard Cohn and Henry Klumpenhouwer. Chapter 5 is devoted to the application of word combinatorics to music. Chapter 6 studies the rhythmic canons and the tessellation of the line. Chapter 7 is devoted to serial knots. Chapter 8 presents combinatorial designs and their applications to music. The last chapter, chapter 9, is dedicated to the study of tuning systems.

How is the Beatles' "Help!" similar to Stravinsky's "Dance of the Adolescents?" How does Radiohead's "Just" relate to the improvisations of Bill Evans? And how do Chopin's works exploit the non-Euclidean geometry of musical chords? In this groundbreaking work, author Dmitri Tymoczko describes a new framework for thinking about music that emphasizes the commonalities among styles from medieval polyphony to contemporary rock. Tymoczko identifies five basic musical features that jointly contribute to the sense of tonality, and shows how these features recur throughout the history of Western music. In the process he sheds new light on an age-old question: what makes music sound good? A Geometry of Music provides an accessible introduction to Tymoczko's revolutionary geometrical approach to music theory. The book shows how to construct simple diagrams representing relationships among familiar chords and scales, giving readers the tools to translate between the musical and visual realms and revealing surprising degrees of structure in otherwise hard-to-understand pieces. Tymoczko uses this theoretical foundation to retell the history of Western music from the eleventh century to the present day. Arguing that traditional histories focus too narrowly on the "common practice" period from 1680-1850, he proposes instead that Western music comprises an extended common practice stretching from the late middle ages to the present. He discusses a host of familiar pieces by a wide range of composers, from Bach to the Beatles, Mozart to Miles Davis, and many in between. A Geometry of Music is accessible to a range of readers, from undergraduate music majors to scientists and mathematicians with an interest in music. Defining its terms along the way, it presupposes no special mathematical background and only a basic familiarity with Western music theory. The book also contains exercises designed to reinforce and extend readers' understanding, along with a series of appendices that explore the technical details of this exciting new theory.