As someone who does not consider themselves musical, I hadn’t really put much thought into how maths is needed in music. I love listening to music and find it a great way to relieve stress whilst belting out a song! However, I studied music in school and absolutely hated it. I would dread walking into that classroom to be asked to play the Eastenders theme tune yet again on the recorder or be asked yet another music related question that I had no clue how to answer and to be frank didn’t care about! I knew of the basic elements of music e.g. tempo, rhythm, dynamics but I didn’t fully understand how maths held such a great purpose in music. After our input with Paola, my eyes have been opened!

In pairs, we had to think of as many links between maths and music as possible. Megan and I came up with quite a few including the note values, beats in a bar, the actual making of an instrument and counting songs. Other ways in which maths and music link include tuning instruments, figured bass, scales and even the Fibonacci sequence! This is because there are 13 notes in an octave e.g. from C to C. A scale is composed of 8 notes. The 5^th and 3^rd notes form the basic ‘root’ chord and are based on whole tone which is simply 2 steps from the root tone i.e. the first note of the scale (Sangster, 2017).

During the workshop, we looked at rhythm practically by playing various instruments in different groups and keeping a beat. This is something which could be used within the primary classroom to develop understanding of maths in music through counting to keep in time. Instruments may include drums, tambourines, maracas, triangles and xylophones.

Scales are another aspect of music which uses maths. It links to the idea of pattern e.g. a major scale of C has the pattern of tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone i.e. C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. we then tried to figure out the major scales for other notes. Whilst this was tricky, I think an upper years class could attempt this activity to increase their understanding of music whilst using maths. The pentatonic scale is a common scale used in music as it is based on 5 notes per octave. It is so fundamental and Howard Goodall explains in a video ScoobyTrue, 2008) that he believes that we are in fact born with these notes instilled in us. In another video (J.K., 2012), Bobby McFerrin demonstrates just how naturally the pentatonic scale comes to us, thus supporting Goodall’s point. I found this video fascinating as when McFerrin moves past the 5 notes, the audience are able to automatically continue the scale with the correct notes. He mentions that it happens with every single audience. This shows the predictability of the pentatonic scale.

The idea of tuning instruments requires maths as the frequency/pitch is crucial here. Before this input, I did not know that tuning an instrument to a perfect pitch makes it sound odd. Therefore, instruments are not tuned perfect and in fact it is impossible to tune an instrument. Tuning is beyond just maths- it also requires a musical ear to determine when it is tuned. We watched a video (minutephysics, 2015) exploring this.

Often, musical instrument design is based on phi, the golden ratio e.g. violins. Interestingly, the climax of songs is usually found at the phi point (61.8%) of the song, rather than at the middle of end (Meisner, 2012).

As I did not enjoy music as a pupil, I was feeling very hesitant to teach it but knew I would need to in order to provide fair opportunities to pupils and meet the curriculum. Whilst I am not confident in music, I do enjoy maths. For this reason, I feel slightly more confident about teaching music in the classroom as I am able to link it back to a subject I am more confident in. This input has shown me some ways in which I could teach music to future classes.

J.K. (2012) Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Irii5pt2qE (Accessed: 9 November 2017).

Meisner, G. (2012) Music and the Fibonacci Sequence and Phi. Available at: https://www.goldennumber.net/music/ (Accessed: 9 November 2017).

minutephysics (2015) Why It’s Impossible to Tune a Piano. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hqm0dYKUx4 (Accessed: 9 November 2017).

Sangster, P. (2017) ‘Discovering Maths Oct 2017’ [PowerPoint Presentation]., ED21006: Discovering Mathematics (year 2) (17/18). Available at:  (Accessed: 9 November 2017).

ScoobyTrue (2008) Howard Goodall on Pentatonic Music. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpvfSOP2slk (Accessed: 9 November 2017).