> Is thinking about music as applied mathematics a good way to create good music? Or is it just the most easily digestible model of music for the crowd on this site?

It's a great way to analyse music (e.g. to categorise, understand, and communicate detail), but that does not mean it's a good way to create it. There's a lot of beauty in finding those abstractions and I think that representation appeals to a lot of people here.

Discussions about timbre, instrumentation, and stylistic influence are often symmetric to those about math. When you have 90 minutes to spare, highly recommend strapping in for a listen to https://malwebb.com/notnoi.html.

There's a lot of really incredible musicians, composers, producers, and educators that go deep on the math. There's also plenty that don't. People build mental models in different ways. That's a good thing and a big part of what makes most art interesting.