

He Talks in Maths: Why Geeks Love Radiohead - dpcheng2003
http://www.davidpcheng.com/post/20910078637/he-talks-in-maths-why-geeks-love-radiohead

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jtheory
I admit I'm a Radiohead fan.

But music theory isn't much rooted in math -- I mean, sure, there's a bit of
math involved, there are composers (mostly within the last 60 years) who've
decided to build lots of math into their music (but much of it is aggressively
unlistenable, OR they did lots of extra work dressing up the mathematical
stuff in "kind on the ear & brain" regular old music to make it sound
nice...), and if you dig into the acoustics of music, or DSP, there's math
there.

But music theory itself is mostly the somewhat-arbitrary documentation of what
music is doing (not in mathematical terms), and sadly even the terms that
involve numbers don't even do it consistently.

The easter eggs are cool -- but I wouldn't listen to the music regardless if I
didn't like the melodies, orchestration, "feel" and so on in most of it.
(Radiohead is quite melodic, on the whole).

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zinkem
I don't know if there is really any specific relationship between Radiohead
and mathematics more than any other musician or composer, and I agree with
you-- mathematics doesn't play into my feelings towards radiohead, they're a
great band. But you point out "music theory isn't much rooted in math." I
think the sentiment is true, music theory is generally taught and practiced
without much thought to mathematics.

However, the fundamental concepts music theory are based on are all analogous
to mathematical statements. You can see what I'm talking about here.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics#Frequency...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics#Frequency_and_harmony)

You'll notice that a fundamental frequency is picked, and we give names to
several related frequencies (octave, third, fifth etc). All of these labels
are analogous to various multiplications of the fundamental frequency. We
learn to recognize some of the simpler relationships, as they are easily
identifiable (different chords are an example of this).

Any one who can count can recognize a number on the number line and compare it
to another number and tell if it's smaller or larger. Those who have begin to
understand arithmetic can identify the difference between those numbers, and
if they are multiples of each other. Advanced mathematicians can tell us about
more complicated relationships.

In music we have tones that can be ordered, and musicians learn through
experience to make these same judgments about tones without even knowing it.
Any amateur musician can hear a pair of tones side by side and recognize which
is higher or lower in pitch. The more advanced ear can identify notes that are
the same or they can tell you a harmonic relationship between them. This is a
different way of experiencing mathematical relationships within an ordered
set.

At it's core, I think music theory is absolutely the study of finding which
combinations of tones create the numerical relationships we find most
appealing in sound.

~~~
jtheory
This isn't much different from what I'm saying, I think -- you mention
frequencies, which don't come up much in most study of music theory beyond
more or less what you have in your comment.

Beyond that, well, I suppose you could say it's "math", but that's a bit like
saying price comparing at the grocery store (calculate the per-kilo price!) is
math -- it won't have math geeks drooling.

I can recognize intervals by ear, but it's just practice. You start out by
"cheating" (twinkle twinkle starts with a leap of a perfect fifth, the NBC
call sign with a major sixth, etc.), then you just learn it. I'll bet you
could get the gist of it using the reference melodies pretty quickly.

You can refer to the relations using basic math terminology, or just the music
theory technology, but regardless it doesn't feel like anything beyond
elementary math -- it goes much quicker into psychology territory.

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zerostar07
OK Computer came out at the peak of the electronica period, so the use of text
to speech and dub production wasn't really novel. Plus the album was more
about urban alienation rather than just technology. I don't think they appeal
specifically to geeks though, they are widely critically acclaimed.

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th0ma5
I personally believe when an artist or group starts being taken seriously by
the Jazz world, that's a sign that they're doing something right. Highly
recommend Jonny Greenwood's recent other work:
[http://www.npr.org/2012/03/04/147668709/first-listen-
krzyszt...](http://www.npr.org/2012/03/04/147668709/first-listen-krzysztof-
penderecki-and-jonny-greenwood)

~~~
bch
See also Brad Mehldau's treatment of Radiohead:
[http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brad+mehldau+rad...](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brad+mehldau+radiohead)

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ilamont
Re: the reference to Fibonacci numbers. Five years ago I stumbled upon a video
that connected Fibonacci to a song off of Tool's Lateralus album:

[http://www.ilamont.com/2007/09/tool-math-rock-and-
fibonacci-...](http://www.ilamont.com/2007/09/tool-math-rock-and-fibonacci-
sequence.html)

FWIW, Lateralus and 10,000 Days (also by Tool) are among the few rock albums I
can listen to while working at night. It's very methodical. I love OK Computer
(and Radiohead's "Airbag/How Am I Driving" EP, released around the same time)
but it's hard for me to concentrate while listening to them -- too many hooks.

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sayemm
Love Radiohead, they're an intellectual group. They're also competitive bridge
players too, cool piece on them:
[http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=1993...](http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=1993&cutting=15)

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kylemaxwell
Flip side of the proposition: many geeks __don't __love Radiohead. No
disrespect those who do, because everyone certainly has their own set of
tastes. But the statement is just as false as claiming that geeks love Bach (I
do, but you may not).

~~~
juiceandjuice
I don't like radiohead hardly at all. I think, besides a few songs, they are
boring. Same with My Bloody Valentine.

I do love math rock though.

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arrakeen
Why Geeks Love Radiohead? because they're not very big music fans.

Radiohead has a song called "Palo Alto"? Well here's an album called Chip-
Meditation by a group called Software:
<http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=132407>

Radiohead uses a mathematical basis for composition? Try an album by Autechre
and try and let your brain parse the mathematical precision and complexity of
the music.

That's not to say that Radiohead aren't a decent pop group: they have proven
that they are. I'm just sayin that based upon the points brought up by the
author, Radiohead are pretty entry-level

~~~
polshaw
I don't agree at all with this article, imo loving music has nothing to do
with the things in the article.

But to claim Radiohead fans aren't big music fans is massively closed-minded.
You might not like them, and that's fine. However, Radiohead are highly
acclaimed by music lovers (OK computer topping _lots_ of respected 'best of
the 90's' lists etc).

~~~
jtheory
I got the impression that arrakeen is saying, _if_ the article were correct,
then that would mean geeks don't know much music.

Because if they went searching for music that ticked off all of the boxes
listed in the article, they'd fine other stuff that did it far more.

But the article isn't really on the mark (I don't think so either), so the
conclusion about geeks doesn't hold water either.

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m0th87
Radiohead is my favorite band, but it has nothing to do with math or pop geek
references or their distribution methods.

They just make damn good music.

~~~
zackzackzack
Same here. I would argue that most of their songs that I like have a certain
melancholy to them. They invoke a mood that is like the feeling I get after
reading the bipolar lisp programmer:
<http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm>

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polshaw
> OK Computer and In Rainbows are 10 years apart and are intended to be
> listened together, a binary joke on the rest of us.

This is just a myth, and it's wrong. And none of these things have anything to
do with why anyone likes Radiohead or not.

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juiceandjuice
Knuth has written (and talked) about interesting mathematical/algorithmic
takes on music.

