It has long been accepted that mathematics plays a major role in the work of composers going as far back as early music, and reaching its greatest flowering in the Baroque, and Bach. Western counterpoint can be reduced to a set of algorithms.

    More recently, the parallel relationships of math Set Theory in music theory have been applied to discover fresh musical combinations and sounds that can be heard in the work of composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Oliver Messiaen, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Igor Stavinsky, Béla Bartók, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, and Ryoji Ikeda. And there’s no need to stop with Western music; elements of set theory can be found in South Indian Carnatic music as well.

     Musical Set Theory has been written about in books by these pioneers: Howard Hanson, Allen Forte, Joseph Schillinger, Nicolas Slonimsky, Milton Babbitt, John Rahn, George Perle, Elliot Carter, Robert Morris, and Joseph Straus.

    Mathematical musical constructs have also been used and taught by jazz pedogosists such as Charlie Banacos, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Mick Goodrich, Jon Damian, Steve Coleman, Richie Beirach, Dave Liebman, John O’Gallagher and Dennis Sandole.

    You will of course find a rich interchange of math and music once you enter computer the music field. Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and compositional algorithms –all are commonly used in Computer Music.  Curtis Roads’ “The Computer Music Tutorial” MIT Press 1996 is a good starting point for understanding some of these processes.