"... but if you want to actually learn musicianship stay well clear."
Species counterpoint is entirely mathematical, as is (to a great extent) common-practice partwriting. Yet, I guarantee you that most people who listen to that music would think it is entirely musical, when in fact very little is more than rule-following. (And yes, this is for a lot of genres! Sonata form, pop structure, etc., etc.)
Also, involving the work of David Cope, his rule-based composition systems repeatedly passed the turing test.
(I'm hoping, once I get to grad school, for my master's thesis to be around this exact idea: the computational aspect of creativity, and how the idea of "musicianship" is really just a human attribute we hold on to.)
I agree that music theory is mainly descriptive rather than prescriptive, but the fact that many works of genius center around patterns, well... it's hard for me to believe that we aren't heavily dependent, on some level, on math.
> Species counterpoint is entirely mathematical, as is (to a great extent) common-practice partwriting.
It really isn't. You can try to translate the guidelines of species counterpoint into "hard" constraints and generate pieces that precisely fit these constraints - but this does not result in good or interesting music. And this is even more true for actual composition, which is developed to a level that far exceeds the guidelines of species counterpoint itself. Thinking of music patterns as being entirely "mathematical" was historically common - there is a lot of old music theory that simply involves a mathematical/numerological exploration of musically-viable ratios between frequencies - but it's not really helpful if you're trying to figure out what makes music tick.
As a composer I agree to some extent. Like, I don't sit down and say "oh lets use some augmented sixths today", but I definitely refer back to the "rules" of music theory a lot when I get stuck or I'm looking for a way to communicate a certain mood in a piece.
And this kinda device-reference approach, I believe, is mathematical. And I also think that a lot of what makes music tick is that inherent usage of the musical language we study or grow up with. Truly original music imo doesn't really exist[0]; the intentional or unintentional borrowing of ideas is why music theory is a field of study: to describe the ways in which music works. I think even modern techniques (set theory, 12-tone rows, and atonal music overall) has to look at the existing rules and say "what can we do differently" -- even as Romantic-era composers got more adventerous in their use of texture, harmony, tonality, etc.
(The story of Charles Ives, who spent most of his younger life being "untrained" by his father to sing duets in overlapping keys and the like, is a good example of this.)
> ... actual composition, which is developed to a level that far exceeds the guidelines of species counterpoint itself
While true, I still think it's more of a spectrum than a binary "all or nothing" mathematical approach, which is why I believe that musicianship is more mathematical than not. I agree that it far exceeds the "use a forth and you're beheaded" approach but I'd be interested to hear music that is entirely free of some sort of process.
[0] note: the discussion of originality in music is probably an entire essay on its own, lol
Species counterpoint is entirely mathematical, as is (to a great extent) common-practice partwriting. Yet, I guarantee you that most people who listen to that music would think it is entirely musical, when in fact very little is more than rule-following. (And yes, this is for a lot of genres! Sonata form, pop structure, etc., etc.)
Also, involving the work of David Cope, his rule-based composition systems repeatedly passed the turing test.
(I'm hoping, once I get to grad school, for my master's thesis to be around this exact idea: the computational aspect of creativity, and how the idea of "musicianship" is really just a human attribute we hold on to.)
I agree that music theory is mainly descriptive rather than prescriptive, but the fact that many works of genius center around patterns, well... it's hard for me to believe that we aren't heavily dependent, on some level, on math.