Big shout to Bruce Warila for the heads up…

Invited Speaker: Dmitri Tymoczko
Associate Professor of Music, Princeton University

http://ismir2008.ismir.net/keynote#invited

The Geometry of Consonance

Abstract
In my talk, I will describe five properties that help make music sound tonal — or “good,” to most listeners. I will then show that combining these properties is mathematically non-trivial, with the consequence that space of possible tonal musics is severely constrained. This leads me to construct higher-dimensional geometrical representations of musical structure, in which it is clear how the various properties can be combined.  Finally, I will show that Western music combines these five properties at two different temporal levels: the immediate level of the chord, and the long-term level of the scale.  The resulting music is hierarchically self-similar, exploiting the same basic procedures on two different time scales. In fact, one and the same twisted cubic lattice describes the musical relationships among common chords and scales.

I realize this is outside the constraints of DIY promo, and more like the Mysticism of Sound and Music, but that’s my SHIT right there.  Also check this out:

http://www.miqel.com/jazz_music_heart/vibrational-truth.html

Probably one of the single best webpages about the geometry of music I’ve ever found.