A project of the Bruce Arnold Foundation · 501(c)(3)

Music is a window into every science.

The mathematics of rhythm. The physics of sound. The set theory hidden inside every chord. Explore the connections between music and the disciplines that shape the world.

Explore the Disciplines

Where music meets other disciplines

Painting by Michal Shapiro
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Music & Mathematics

Fractions govern rhythm. Set theory maps every chord. Power sets reveal the hidden structure of Western harmony.

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Painting by Michal Shapiro
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Music & Physics

Sound is vibration. Frequency determines pitch. Amplitude shapes dynamics. Every note is a physics equation in motion.

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Article series

Music & Biology · 20 Articles

Key Center Perception

What key center is as a biological sense, how it develops, why it cannot be explained — only experienced.

Music & Biology · 20 Articles

Rhythmic Time Sense

Charlie Banacos’s method for developing the felt sense of musical time. Covers Long Line Rhythm® and the spiritual dimension of felt time.

Music & Science · 20 Articles

SuperScales — The MMA Discovery

How Melodic Minor Ascending became the only 7-note scale where all 12 transpositions function over real chords in one key center.

Music & Math · 20 Articles

Hexatonics across STEAM

Six-note scales split into two 3-note trichords — the pitch class set system underlying modern jazz harmony.

The A in STEAM

Music & the Visual Arts

Bruce Arnold’s teacher Charlie Banacos regularly sent students to art museums to write music inspired by paintings and sculptures. The same mathematical relationships found in music — symmetry, proportion, pattern, contrast — appear in every visual art form. These works by painter Michal Shapiro have inspired many of Bruce’s compositions over 40 years.

Xochitl by Michal Shapiro Optimism by Michal Shapiro Small Fry by Michal Shapiro Sunnyside by Michal Shapiro Plumming by Michal Shapiro Ozymandias by Michal Shapiro

Paintings courtesy of Michal Shapiro — michalshapiro.com — used with permission.