Building music

There’s this Youtube channel I love called ScienceEtonnante [FR] (which would roughly translate to “Astonishing Science”). The videos are usually revolving around Physics and are really instructive, even if you are a scientist. But the host, David Louapre (who interestingly did his PhD in Waterloo at the Perimeter Institute!), sometimes focuses on topics where you would not expect science to have the main role.

If you’re wondering why western music is built around 12 notes, with the root, third and fifth playing such an important role, you should really watch this video: The Mathematics of Music [FR] (English subtitles available).

Spoiler alert: it all comes down to the equality 3^12 = 2^19 being almost true.