Kieron Gillen's workblog

 
             

   
 
 

5/27/2004

 
"Absolutely. Would it be fair to say that you've often applied a mathematical relationship to music, or that you see the two overlapping?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. There's been, since the ancient Greeks, a very close link between music and mathematics.

Since Pythagoras, in theory.

Well, since Pythagoras in mythology. This is a sort of discipline. People think that composers sit there with their pen over the manuscript paper, and God sends his inspiration down the top of the pen onto the paper. Well, in some cases it seems perhaps they did; perhaps Mozart. But in other cases one has to impose a discipline, and the discipline of number is an excellent discipline. The Fibonacci sequence people have been using for centuries.

Is this the one where architecture and music relate in their proportions?

Nature's numbers; the number of leaves on a fern, the number of seeds on a sunflower head, and how they are arranged... this is the Fibonacci sequence, used in art and architecture and music. Although when you hear it in music, it is not recognised. Even George Gershwin used it in Porgy and Bess. Now who knows that?"


Walker forwarded me this interview with Delia Derbyshire, which is excellent reading. I've been doing a little delving into early electronic pop pioneers - Kraftwerk, mainly - so this mirrors it nicely. Also, much dovetail into my continuing thoughts as part of another project.


 

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