Book on Mathematical Theories of Music and Harmony

Hi all,

I found this book on the internet titled "Mathematical Theories of Music and Harmony", but I haven't bought it yet cause I am not sure if it is good.

Has anyone heard of this book? It sounds interesting to me.

[math-snob]None of them are actually mathematical. It's all pseudo-math.[/math-snob]

[math-snobbier]

These books are mathematical insofar as they propose a set of axioms (assumptions) that one uses for analysis; from these axioms, analysis can proceed in a precise and highly organized manner.

They are not mathematical in the sense that they use theorems and prodecures from the field of mathematics. Any attempts to do something like that have failed miserably, in my opinion, because they involve a lot of sleight-of-hand and fuzzy math.[/math-snobbier]

If you've never done any musical set theory or anything like that, the standard book to start with is Allen Forte's book. It's called Introduction to Set Theory or something along those lines and every graduate student in music composition in the USA has to read it at some point. (Generally speaking.) From there, you can branch off into other books, but you need this introduction first.