Mathematical and computational approaches to music: challenges in an interdisciplinary enterprise

This Special Issue is dedicated to explicate and discuss methodological issues in the interdisciplinary research field of mathematical and computational approaches to music. It arose from a lively panel discussion at the third International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music 2011 in Paris. We have organized this panel in order to initiate the much needed interdisciplinary dialogue on the How, Why, and What of our modelling of and theorizing about music in the wide field of science, humanities and cognitive approaches to music research. From the contributions of the three panelists to this Special Issue, we extract key topics that the interdisciplinary scientific community needs to address in order to enable the different disciplines to productively complement one another in achieving a comprehensive approach to music as a complex, yet fundamental human trait.