Every high school math student has heard about some dude name Pythagoras and his crazy theory.
While there is some evidence from the times of Babylonia that the theory already existed but the Greek philosopher made it famous.
The theory states, “the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.” Or…A2 + B2 = C2.
He lived in Greece from 571 to 497BCE and brought something to the world much bigger than a mathematical theory.
MUSIC!
Using his mathematics skills, Pythagoras discovered that there was a correlation between the distance between two notes and their harmonies.
Prior to Pythagoras and his discovery, there was only random sound with no form. By learning the relationship between notes, it made it possible for people to create sounds that became music.
Pythagoras paved the way Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig von Beethoven, Fredric Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and numerous others to compose beautiful music to fill the air and our ears.
Because of Pythagoras and his musical discoveries, he also made it possible to create the various formats of the piano.
There are 12 notes in a chromatic scale – each a half step apart.
I think it would be very interesting to travel back in time and have a nice long conversation with Pythagoras on his musical thoughts and discoveries.
I really enjoy music theory; I think it’s fun! I took some music theory classes in college and really enjoyed it. Funny part was I did better than most of the music majors…who actually hated the class.
I wish he didn’t invent all these, because if he had not I would have passed all my algebra, trigonometry and match classes. I did OK but I’ll never forgive him.