Book Review: Music by the Numbers, by Eli Maor

This book was the perfect combination of my interests, it covers the linking of maths to our understanding of conventional western music and then describes the more recent and unconventional music which in itself is based upon maths. Alongside the chapters 1-12 which have a chronological sort of structure there are subchapters which are called sidebars of which they are labelled A-E, they are used to inform the reader of other relevant topics and ideas which do not fit directly in the narrative of the previous or next chapter. Such as sidebar A "It's All about Nomenclature" which effectively lays out how Maor is going to be articulating his ideas and findings.

Maor's personal touch to his writing makes the book more interesting as you can tell that he clearly has a deep interest in the matter which he is writing about. In the Preface he describes his exposure to music in his childhood and how it has impacted his opinions and interests in music currently. In fact his exposure to music through his parents at an early age is very similar to mine and I find that to a certain degree our relationships with music which appear to have a very mathematical approach are not too dissimilar. The tone that the book adopts is much more conversational than some books which also makes it a very approachable book to understand. In the same way the diagrams and images which are included in the book really help make the ideas more understandable and cohesive, the diagrams on harmonics in particular as my practicals on harmonics have never gone to plan(while still yielding surprisingly good values).

It was really interesting to read a book which married three of my a level subjects together so perfectly without being an impossible or taxing read, by no means do you need a deep interest in music or mathematics to be able to read and understand this book. And, although this is a relatively short book (which took me almost two hours to read) it covers a large area of both history and mathematical ideas, beginning in the 500BCE with Pythagoras and working through all the way to Einstein and his theory of relativity and Schoenberg and the introduction of 12 tone music, even drawing similarities between the two on the way.

Overall I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in music, maths, harmonic or physics generally. It really is an interesting read and will leave me thinking about how my interests are all inherently interlinked.