Math is Music

Math and music are usually organized into two separate categories, without obvious overlap.  It tends to be that people are good at math and science or art and music, as if the two elements could not be placed together logically.  In actuality, math and music are indeed related and we commonly use numbers and math to describe and teach music. Musical pieces are read much like you would read math symbols.  The symbols represent some bit of information about the piece.  Musical pieces are divided into sections called measures or bars.  Each measure embodies an equal amount of time.  Furthermore, each measure is divided into equal portions called beats.  These are all mathematical divisions of time.

Fractions are used in music to indicate lengths of notes.  In a musical piece, the time signature tells the musician information about the rhythm of the piece.  A time signature is generally written as two integers, one above the other.  The number on the bottom tells the musician which note in the piece gets a single beat (count).  The top number tells the musician how many of this note is in each measure.  Numbers can tell us a lot about musical pieces.