I have to respond to this post... a couple of points stand out amongst
many.  Thanh-Tam Le wrote:

>Socially speaking, apart from a common feature (many professional
>mathematicians know nothing out of their particular field, and the same
>goes with many instrumentalists, apart from the truly great musicians), I
>could say that both worlds are quite ignorant of each other.

I couldn't disagree more...  musicians and mathematicians have enjoyed
and appreciated both the abstract and the literal parallels between their
subjects for centuries - and I cannot think of a composer who has been
'quite ignorant' of the numbers, patterns, and structures which often form
the skeleton of their work.  The greatest authority on the harmonic series
was Pythagorus and his work is used as the backbone of music tuition
throughout the world.  The greatest book on Bach that I ever read was by
Douglas Hofstadter ('Godel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid')- which
clearly explained to an 'ignorant' like myself just how Bach and Babbage
and Escher and Godel are utterly interwoven.  Read it!  Bartok and Kodaly
are dripping with Fibonacci sequences (read the series of books by Lendvai
on this) and had a pretty strong grasp of the subject.

>What is sure is that (at least in France) most professional musicians
>totally lack any interest in mathematics!

er...  how do you know? Many musicians in the UK have had formal training
in mathematics - in fact the late Chris Van Kampen - a superb and much
loved cellist had a first in Maths from Oxford...  he is one of very many.

Best wishes

Phil Sheppard
(a mere cellist who has an o level in maths - very basic)