Mathematical Music: From Antiquity to Music AI 1st edition by Nikita Braguinski from Focal Press offers a concise and easily accessible history of how mathematics was used to create music. The story presented in this short, engaging volume ranges from ratios in antiquity to random combinations in the 17th century, 20th-century statistics, and contemporary artificial intelligence.
This book provides a fascinating panorama of the gradual mechanization of thought processes involved in the creation of music. How did Baroque authors envision a composition system based on combinatorics? What was it like to create musical algorithms at the beginning of the 20th century before the computer became a reality? And how does this all explain today's use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in music? In addition to discussing the history and the present state of mathematical music, Braguinski also takes a look at what possibilities the near future of music AI might hold for listeners, musicians, and the society.
Grounded in research findings from musicology and the history of technology, and written for the non-specialist general audience, this book helps both student and professional readers to make sense of today's music AI by situating it in a continuous historical context.
Acknowledgments
Composing with numbers (overview of this book)
From continuities...
1. Not a revolution (introduction)
2. Since antiquity
3. Since the Middle Ages
4. Since the early modern period
5. Since the 19th century
6. Since 1900
7. Since 1950... to possibilities
8. Powerful and limited (introduction)
9. How does deep learning work?
10. Putting music AI in perspective
11. Real-world music AI
12. Mass-produced and still individual
13. Avant-garde becomes pop’s aide
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index