Why scale was chosen?

I am a little bit of a mathematician and I am just starting to learn music. The problem with me being a mathematician is that I question everything. I am learning about scales and whatnot, and I just don't get something.

Somewhere western music was decided to have twelve notes. And for some reason, someone decided that those notes should be named, and he/she named them with the beginning of our alphabet. But why did the person choose that there should be no sharp or flat between B and C (and E and F)?

I mean, why not make notes be:
A Bb B Cb C Db D Eb E Fb F Ab

Or even easier
A B C D E F G H I J K L

What made this musical inventor choose the naming scheme that he/she chose??

i always thought mathematician only answered, i.e. just plugged away at pre-made fomrulas while it is up to the arts students like philosphy major's and sociologist to question the way things work? :)

why are you bobbybobbertson and not chubbychubbertson??

of course ther is a reason to why it is the way it is - it lies in the Hexachord (mostly) and in the way peeps used to think, work and live back then. i will post on this topic as soon as Walter Haberl (friend of mine) is done with his book on this ancient topic (he rediscovered all of it).

Other than that you can find a lil explaination on notes and tunings in my Host section:
http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=5648

by the way - music and music theory and the note-system has not been invented by a single person - it has grown over the centuries. our note system is far from beeing accurate. and back then it was even more vague. the developement mostly took place in monastaries where the monks where working on chants and tried to find a way to write their music down for they had no harddiskrecording system back then.

The notes were not given their names in ABC , they were first called Do Re Mi,etc. I belive the Do Re Me names has something to do with the note sounding. i.e when you hear the C note it sounds slightly like someone saying 'Do' and the note E note sounds like someone saying 'Me' , I belive people with 'Perfect Pitch' recognize notes this way. (I don't have perfect pitch, but I can recognize some notes this way too)

Then the major scale and intervals were setteled in the baroque age I think , and the fundamental scale was the 'Do maj' (Cmaj).

And when somebody decided to name those notes in ABC, I don't know why not 123 , I also don't know why the 'La' A note was chosen to be the first note, but it seems to be a very special note in western music since all of the tunings are refered to it (A 440Hz).

But logicaly, those Alphabetic names had to be set on one of the scales , and each scale in classic western music has 7 notes so the alphabetic charactars had to be from A to G, then they probably chosen the white keys of the piano which makes the C maj scale (or the A min) .


Anyway, who cares? as a mathematician ,you can use calculus perfectly without knowing how the idea of differentiation came into Isac Newton's mind, also you don't have to know anything about 'Napier' to solve logarithms.
Just be happy to be born in this age, so you can benefit from all of this knowledge around us.


[Edited by SLY on 12-03-2002 at 12:41 PM]

Now, I'm not absolutely sure this is right, but this is my idea...

Look at a piano. If every note had a sharp/flat, how would you know which note was which? The notes are based around the groups of three black keys and two black keys. This helps to easily identify notes on the piano. The guitar just took the notes from the piano.

This is, again, just my idea (The same question nagged me a while back, so I thought of this)

man, you guys are tough. thanks to those that replied nicely!

TheDirt--
I had your same thought, but that just brought up more questions. If the alphabetical names along with sharps and flats were named after the black keys of a piano, that means the black keys were chosen to be different first. So that brings up the question, why did they single out those 5 keys to be different? Maybe those five notes just sounded special to the first musicians?

It would be nice to know why some things were chosen as it may help us create.

SLY--
As a mathemitician, I can use calculus perfectly without knowing how the idea came to the inventor's head. But if I could learn his creative process, I might be able to create something on my own that is just as powerful.

Calculus, as well as other mathematics in general is not just about "plug + chug" type problems. Mathemeticians look at things, question how they work, and after understanding how they work derive a formula that governs how the thing in question works, making it easier for future mathematicians to deal with the aforementioned object and eliminating work they'd have to do to figure it out themselves, allowing them to work on new problems... if everyone had to figure out the special relationships in 30-60-90 triangles or that the volume of a sphere is four thirds pi r cubed for themselves, math wouldn't be nearly as far as it is today.

The same applies with music theory. People questioned why the notes C, then D, E, F, G, A, B sounded good. They saw that D, E, F#, G, A, B, C# also sounded good. Then someone noticed the pattern and derived a mathematical formula to attain the major scale. Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Music theory is pretty much the math governing music. If no one had told you the "formula" to make major and minor chords, it'd be hell to come up with chord progression to jam with your buddies.

Question the way things work and come up with your own formulas to create kick-ass music!

just for the record - "DO" was originally "UT"

so it is UT, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA (SI)

It can be traced back to Guido d´Arezzo,a Benedictine prior of the Camaldolite monastery of Avellana (990 - 1050) who has supposedly invented the Staff or Stave (for notes). He invented the system of allocating syllables to the first six notes of the scale. (UT RE MI FA SOL LA) - why six, you might ask - well - the HEXACHORD (Hexa=6, Cordum=String) is a system of 6-note scales (will explain the reasons when Walter gives me the 'go ahead') - not seven as we use nowadays. The syllable SI was added much later.

These six Syllables were derived from the first syllables of each of the first six phrases of the text of a hymn to
St. John the Baptist that he wrote:

"UT queant laxis, REsonare fibris,
MIra gestorum, FAmuli tuorum,
SOLve polluti, LAbii reatum"

The hymn begins on c and each of the other phrases begins one note higher. Thats how the scales started.

UT RE MI FA SOL LA = C D E F G A

UT is still used in France - everywhere else they use DO (for i think italian monks believed that DO can be sung easier than UT).
..

well - another thing for the next newsletter i guess :)


[Edited by Azrael on 12-03-2002 at 04:19 PM]

And dirt...


The piano itself was invented by Bartolommeo Cristofori in Italy in the year 1709 (The Cristofori Pianoforte) - long after the names for notes where fixed

VERY cool Azrael. I had never heard of where they got the syllables for the scale. Where'd you learn this kind of stuff?

im seeking wisdom on music and all that has to do with it wherever i can find it - i happen to have a few great connectinos to real good tutors on universities here in austria, and i LOVE talking about music and gathering all info i can get - also from the internet - a big keg of wisdom that is. The most inspiring thing for me at the moment is the Hexachord. Mr. Haberl has after 7 years of research rediscovered this ancient and lost system - it was the system by which all great composers of the past where going - now im spending much time with Walter to get as much info as i can and i hope he´ll be done soon with his book. i´m afraid it will be no mass-seller for he has decided to keep it to a lil circle of close friends. But if he lets me, i would like to teach that wisdom for i think its very valuable and it should not get lost again.

.. there is nothing more powerfull than wisdom... and a guitar of course *LOL*

;)

[Edited by Azrael on 12-03-2002 at 04:14 PM]

i forgot - SI was then added cuz the full rhyme is:

Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum, Solve polluti Labii reatum,
Sancte Joannes

Formerly "I" was used instead of "J" (Sancte Ioannes) so this MIGHT be the origin of the SI

and the verse wasnt written by D´Arezzo, but by Paolo Diacono (Ca 720 - 799) - D´Arezzo only used it - my bad
D´Arezzo MIGHT have been the one introducing SI, but that is disputed

[Edited by Azrael on 12-03-2002 at 04:26 PM]

Originally posted by Azrael
.......Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum, Solve polluti Labii reatum,
Sancte Joannes......

Cool, I thought UT was just a french translation for DO. I never knew that it was the original name. :D

So what are these names above? Are these names of people or things? They seems french to me, the only full sentence I know in french is 'Je nes parles pas francias' (hope I spelled it correctly). Would you please explain them?

thats latin:

"So that Your servants may sing at the top of one's voices the wonders of Your Acts, absolve the fault from their stained lips, Saint Johannes"

[Edited by Azrael on 12-04-2002 at 06:25 AM]

Go on then! Impress us all again with your knowledge and tell me, who was St. Johannes and why were his lips stained?
One other thing: hexachord? I thought that was just a 1,3,5,7,9,11 extended chord but if it's been lost then I must be wrong so what is it?

Originally posted by u10ajf
Go on then! Impress us all again with your knowledge and tell me...

very funny, realy

Thanks Azrael !

I became more interested in this, I think I'm gonna find some books or websites to read more about music history in my spare time. :D