Math and Music

They may seem like two very different things, but the two are very related. Whenever you look at a line of music you can compare it to a line graph. The x-axis would represent the time you play a pitch, and the y-axis would represent which pitch you play. Then when you put the two together you get a melody or song.

Another very important part of music is rhythm, without rhythm a melody would be unorganized and difficult to listen to. The rhythm is shown is by using different types of notes. Eachnote divides a beat or pulse. For example, normally, a whole note equals 4 beats, half note equals 2 beats, a quater note equals 1 beat, an eigthnote equals 1/2a beat, a sixteenth note equals 1/4 a beat, and ect. Without the system music would sound uneven, and there would be no way to record music and all song would be unwritten. All of this uses math because of the dividing of the beats. You have to be able to divide and count all of the notes correctly or else the song or melody won't sound right.

At the beginning of any line of music you will see two numbers on top of eachother. This is called a time signature, and without it it would be difficult to understand the music. The top number represents how many beats are in each measure(the space between two bar lines). The bottom number represents which type of note equals one beats. For example, when ever you see a four over a four you know that measure has four beats and the quater note gets one beat,when you see a six over an eight you know there a six beats and an eighth note gets one beat. This is very important to know so you are able to read the rythm and know how to divide up the beats of the notes.

These are just some ways math uses music. Without math in music everything would sound unorganized and wouldn't make any sense. This shows how two things that nobody associates with eachother can rely on one to exsit.

Why do people hate math?

I think some people hate math because they think that it's confusing. Math is different from all of the other subjects because it includes numbers, symbols, and equations. Then when they don't get how to figure out the problem they get frusterated, confused, and they hate math.

When I first started Geometry I was really confused with all of the surface area, volume, and other equations I was learning, and I didn't like my teacher ether. The way she explained things made math really unclear for me. I started hating math because of that teacher, and my grade in that class. Then when I started reading the itroductions in the chapter while she lectured, it made things a lot clearer. Then made grade got better, and I started to think that math wasn't so bad.

Math is important to everybody including artists. When someone paints a picture they need to calculate it's value, and sell it. When a musican, dancer, or actor preforms somewhere they need to know how much they are going to be payed. Musicans and dancers really need math. They have to constantly count and make sure they are doind the right thing at the right time, or else they will sound or look bad.

Math education can really improve. Some teachers teach math with the littlest amount of excitement as possible. They don't make it make sense, sometimes it almost seems like a bunch of numbers and equations we have to memorize. My favorite math teacher (so far at least) was my algebra 1 teacher. She made up little tricks to help the students remember how to work equations. For example, when ever there were fractions in an equations she said we would have to use the "fly swatter", or multiply the denominater to everything, to get rid of all the fractions and make them whole numbers.

Statistics

Statistics are very important in the world. They show how data relates to eachother. When you compare things to eachother you get a much better perspective of what the things are, rather than just stating a fact. When you are making a scatter plot, you compare all of the points. You also get to see any trends that might form so you will be able to guess what the next statistic will be.

For example, if you were clueless about american currency and someone asked you if you would like 10 pennies, 6 nickels, 7 dimes, 3 quaters, what would you chose? You would have to compare them to eachother and find out which one has the greatest value, which is shown in the graph above. When all of the values are compared to one another you can see that 3 quaters is the greatest value.

(I have no idea why the graph is in the middle of the paragraph. I couldn't figure out how to move it.)