Mini-Course – Music and Mathematics

A Journey of Discovery Through Music and Mathematics

RECOMMENDED GRADES: 5-10

Music and mathematics are universal languages worldwide. In this course students apply mathematical tools (functions, operations, and graphing) to create original music compositions. Utilizing activities from his curricular publication Functional Melodies, teacher/author Scott Beall leads students through an exploration of math functions, their transformations, and the musical expressions that they describe. By the end of the course students end up in a pure musical workshop experience and compositions are played by real time instruments or digital programs.

No musical background whatsoever is needed for students to access the experience and learning. The course provides access to both musical and math content learning through multiple modalities in a most unique and effective way, and fosters powerful insights into universal principles in systems thinking that broaden students’ outlook and perception of their world. Additionally, the music context provides powerful access to understanding math concepts for many learners.

Parent participation is encouraged. Parents would ideally participate as co-learners, virtually “taking” the course along with their child. The nature of the course is such that it is highly engaging for all age levels.