When people think of music they usually do not think of math. Music is actually related to math in the sense that rhythms are based off of fractions and multiples of one another. For example a quarter note receives one count in the time signature four four.
Notes are also based off of fractions as they are also multiples of one another. In the picture below the whole note is the note that is held the longest and two half notes make up one whole note. Next you can see that 4-quarter notes make up 2 half notes. And so forth 4 quarter notes equals 8 eighth notes. And last on the chart 8 eighth notes equals 16 sixteenth notes.
The time signature is divided into a top number and a bottom number. The top number determines how many beats per measure. The bottom note will determine what note receives 1 beat in a measure. The example below the time signature is four four where a quarter note receives one beat
Rests correspond with notes in terms of how many beats they receive during each measure based on the time signature.
Music is also made up of sound waves that have corresponding frequencies. For example the A string on a viola vibrates a 440 Hz. As Pythagoras discovered in Greek music, each note is a fraction of a string. The C string is 4/5 the frequency of length of the A.
