Someone asked me a question recently and I had no answer for them. So I'm posting it here, in the hope that someone else does know the answer!
They asked me why the first note on the musical scale doesn't start with the letter A, which is the first letter of the alphabet. We know how convenient "middle C" is, being in the center of the piano keyboard and all that, but is there a reason it couldn't have been named "middle A" instead?
As musicians we're all used to the traditional note names, but why they were named that way? This seemed like a silly question, but I don't know the answer! SETH
Alphabet names for notes is mostly an English/Germanic thing. It dates back thousands of years and predates many other conventions like "octaves" or "keys".
The system predates the piano by a long shot. So, the piano keyboard was designed around the pre-existing naming system.
More people (globally) use solfege (do-re-me) than the Alphabet.
Fixed-do vs movable-do? I always thought that solfege was a movable (transposable) major scale, but some folks insist that do is a C. Transposable is like the Nashville I, II, III, IV, V...
I think that the surviving cornetts from the 16th Century are the oldest instruments whose exact pitch can still be determined. (They have pitch holes and a conical bore and a trumpet-like mouth piece, i.e. driven by a lip buzz.) Apparently, on most of them the lowest note was an A -- and called A.
Well, as I suspected, it wasn't a silly question after all!
I'll be interested to hear any additional thoughts on this. SETH
Solfege is all well-and-good. But I think a lot of us here should drop and give thanks that North America does not use the English names for rhythm - I'm looking at you, hemisemidemiquaver.
Mmmm Hemisemidemiquaver? That'll be a lovely name for a girl. Demi for short. Gonna tell the missus.
The ABC system is traced back to when only two octaves were used...and they used the first 14 letters to name all the notes (except "J", as it didn't exist then). When an additional octave was added, somebody decided to use only 7 letters and make it a repeating series.
"Do" was originally "Ut", and taken from a Latin hymn which also gave us re, mi, so and la. Ti came later.
I think it (do) was movable at first, fixed came later (IIRC)...and both are used/taught today.
It might be worth speculating along the lines that Am is relative to C maj, in that they use all the same notes (no sharps or flats). With only those notes, the most consonant major scale you can develop is C maj.
Edited by - trapdoor2 on 12/09/2024 13:11:01
You can thank my greatly-greatly Grampa, the Pope who promoted what became known as GREGORIAN chant!
Somebody convinced somebody that "UT" was a stupid sound to try make, musically, so it got changed to "DOUGH"
Eventually, the scale was turned into a very nice song for a young nun to sing, in "The Sound of Music".
And finally, into a song suitable for singing in a tavern
So let's grab our banjos and JOIN IN!
=========================
"DOUGH" is what I spend on beer
"RAY" the guy who pours the beer!
"ME" the one I buy beer for
"FAH" I'll go reeel fah foh beeh!
"SO" So, let's go have a beer!
"LAH" I wanna lahdda BEER!
"TEA"? No thanks, I'd rather BEER
But I'm simply out of DOUGH!
and then
When you tip the ones who pour.. They may pour you slightly more!
quote:
Originally posted by mmuussiiccaallthe picture tells the story
I agree that middle C is a good place to start, and that it made sense to put that particular note in the middle of the keyboard.
But unless I'm missing something, it still doesn't explain why that particular note isn't named "A," so that the notes which follow are in correct alphabetical order. Somebody did think that at least some of the notes (C-D-E-F-G & A-B) did need to be in alphabetical order. But A isn't the next letter after G in the English alphabet. In fact, if "A" originally was the first named note, then the rest that follow would be in correct alphabetical order -- maybe that was the original note scheme?
I am also wondering about the thought another poster had that C major is the only key with no sharps or flats (a/k/a "The People's Key"), and that the choice of C is somehow connected to the issue of equal temperament. But even so, couldn't it have been named "the key of A"? Or for that matter, the key of "S" or "N" or whatever? SETH
Edited by - sethb on 12/09/2024 14:59:53
I never thought "the" musical scale was a singular thing, and a musical scale could start on any of those seven letters, or any of those twelve notes when you include the sharps and flats. I've always encountered the musical "alphabet" as written A B C D E F G.
The C major scale doesn't include any sharps and flats, and I always understood that to be the primary reason that C was chosen by the Scientific Pitch Notation system as the dividing line for numbering octaves.
Maybe it's the "Scientific Pitch Notation" system that you're curious about?
musicandtheory.com/an-easy-gui...notation/
Greg -- Thanks for the info about the Scientific Pitch Notation system, I always wondered about those abbreviations. I also noticed that the lowest note on a piano happens to be an A, while the highest note is a C. I guess they just couldn't decide between the two!
You are also right in pointing out that a musical scale can actually begin on any of the 7 (or 12) notes, so there's really no magic to starting on C, or on A for that matter.
Based on your comments, I'm also now thinking that the initial question may really refer to musical notation rather than scales. At least with a treble "C" clef, someone decided to use the note of Middle C as the starting note on the staff lines (actually on a line that's one space below the lowest staff line). Who knows why this was selected, other than to say the vocal range of many people also seems to fall within the staff lines, rather than above or below them (unless you're a bass, baritone, tenor, soprano or alto!). So it may have been a simple matter of convenience for vocalists, more than anything else.
Like many other things musical, I'm guessing the answer is probably lost in the dusts of history. As always, thanks to all for their thoughts and suggestions! SETH
Edited by - sethb on 12/11/2024 10:24:29
My post about notation jogged my memory that more than one clef can be used in musical notation, which would of course jog the position of the note lineup again.
In addition to the very common G clef with Middle C one space below the staff, there's also a C or Viola clef, with Middle C on the third line of the staff, which was created to help alto singers read choral music. [My note about a "C clef" in my prior post was wrong, it should have said "G clef".] And there's also the Bass clef and a few others as well.
Finally, this portion of the thread got me wondering where the term "clef" came from, since it didn't seem to be an abbreviation for anything. It turns out that "clef" is French for the word "key." Now there's a great piece of musical trivia! SETH
Edited by - sethb on 12/13/2024 09:42:28
quote:
Originally posted by mike gregoryYou can thank my greatly-greatly Grampa, the Pope who promoted what became known as GREGORIAN chant!
That image was lifted somewhere along the line from our video on the subject.
Getting back to the question, Ut was the first solfege syllable of the hymn to St. John the Baptist that was the basis for the hexachord. The hexachord was the precursor to our modern diatonic scale, which was later augmented to include a seventh note, Si, which was so-named after the dedicatee of the hymn, Sancte Iohannes (there was no "J" in the early alphabet).
The solfege syllables offer information that allows the user to determine the space between a set of intervals, and those note names were dependent upon the mode, indicated by the starting and ending pitches. "C" or "Ut" or "Do" are just labels applied to the starting place in a set of intervals.
My theory is that back in the dark ages, a bunch of troubadours sat around the fireplace in the great hall and came up with a system of notation that would truly confuse anybody outside of their circle. So their competition could never decode what they wrote down.
There is actually a book about the history of music notation, called "Capturing Music" by Thomas Kelly (W.W. Norton, 2015), and it's pretty good. I picked it up from a remainder table a few years ago, but it may still be available on Amazon or from the Advanced Book Exchange (a great used-book website).
And when you think about it, there is a tremendous amount of information contained in the very compact space that's above, below and on those staff lines. But as one jazz musician has noted, "what's really important is what's in the spaces between the notes." SETH
Things did start with the key of A. The key with no sharps or flats. But later they gave us light bulbs, refrigerators and Nintendo's, so we just adapted the key of A's relative, the happy-go-lucky key of C major, as standard. Things weren't always so cheery. Minor wasn't a relative of a major, it was just life and people got on with it.
My free and accurate-ish history lesson of the day. You're welcome. 
