Pythagoras did not kill music

....and what that has to do with economics....

Some might be wondering why Pythagoras needs a murder defense. The accuser is Ted Goia, normally one of my favorite writers/thinkers, but he continually¹ beats this horse, much to my annoyance.

Ted’s point is that Pythagoras started using math in an attempt to develop a theory of music, which has been stifling creativity ever since. The artist must lie in a dark room and wait for the muse to grace his spirit. Rational thought can only interfere. Or something like that.

Evidence for the defense: Johan Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane.

It goes without saying that all of these gents knew their music theory quite well, and managed to be fairly creative. Do we really need a trial?

I’d go further and say that their knowledge of music theory helped them to create. Knowledge of the structure of music that has come before suggests new forms. From one perspective, the history of jazz has been a series of additions of more complicated chords and scales to the language.

All these issues appear in Ted’s tribute to “A Love Supreme” by Coltrane. Coltrane himself emphasized the spiritual aspect to the composition, saying he “received” the music from a higher power. At the same time, Coltrane advanced jazz theory with his Circle of Tones, a reinterpretation of the Circle of 5ths. “Coltrane Harmony” refers to movement of chords by thirds. It is hard to believe he would have accomplished this without a deep knowledge of the music theory that came before.

Theory and creativity are complements not competitors.

Not that theory doesn’t create pitfalls.

It is true that some musicians get bogged down learning every scale known to man and forget to make music. One pianist told a story of practicing scales for hours in his apartment, when someone yelled through the window, “play a Bossa Nova!” Playing jazz and classical music requires a certain amount of formal learning that not everyone is willing to acquire.

Math and economics have a similar relationship. When I started graduate school in economics, many of my classmates complained about all the math we had to learn. They just wanted to cure poverty and climate change. You do need to be pretty good at math to make mathematical modeling in economics work for you, and many of those students didn’t make it past qualifying exams.

At the same time, some economists get bogged down in the math and forget about the ultimate goals. I’ll cop to a misdemeanor violation. I spent some time working on chaotic dynamics, which are interesting mathematically, but their application to economic phenomena is questionable. Some macroeconomists fell in love with their favorite models that led them astray when the housing crisis/Great Recession hit.

I was reminded about all this, reading tributes to the late, great economist Stanley Fischer. Fischer was notable as an economist who was a first rate academic researcher but also make huge contributions as a policymaker, heading the Bank of Israel and working in a high position at the IMF.

Before that he was just another talented graduate student. In the words of his student (and great and still breathing economist) Olivier Blanchard:

“….students were in awe of Stan’s use of stochastic calculus in his macro finance papers; but there was no attempt to impress or to show off.”

Dr. Fisher knew his theory, but used it in the service of greater understanding. Perhaps his greatest contribution was inspiring a couple generations students.

Stanley Fischer and John Coltrane lived in different worlds, but they both had the drive to learn all they could about their fields, and the humility to use that knowledge to inspire.

Theory is not a barrier or a catapult. It is both.

1. This is a major theme in his book “Music: a Subversive History.”