"> Pete wrote:
>> Why is the tonic of the "all white notes" major scale "C" and not "A"?
>> As far as I understand it, the diatonic scale derives (probably both)
>> from the logic of harmonics, and the circle of fifths, so that pattern
>> is fairly basic to our Western music. So, given that it exists, and it
>> has a tonic, why didn't we label the scale ABCDEFG(A), with C-D and G-A
>> being the semitones? How did a minor scale come to be ABCDEFG? (A
minor
>> third desn't fit into the circle of fifths, does it?)
Pete, sorry to snip Hans' response, but to back up here:
The Greeks used letter names like Alpha Beta, Chi, and so on for their
notes. The lowest note was Gamma, and the highest was Ut, and that is
where
we get the word "Gamut" - when something "runs the Gamut" it is akin to
running the entire length of the scale.
The Greeks used a modal system where "C Major" or "A minor" were not
im****tant factors. They basically just had some tonoi (scales) and over
time
some became more favored than others. By the time the middle ages rolls
around, the ecclesiastical composers favored 8 modes, of which Dorian is
the
first, or what they called Protus. WHY it's the first one, I'm not sure.
But
the two missing modes are Ionian and Aeolian, or Major and minor. So they
had D-d modes, and E-e modes, etc. It wasn't until later that they started
using C-c and A-a modes. And it wasn't until later still that composers
sort
of abandoned, or "absorbed" all 6 modes into a bipartite system - what we
end up calling Major/minor (by the Baroque period)
Now, your question has to do with something that's happened along the way
since then - we've become "C centric". It's really got largely to do with
teaching practices. But somehow, people place extra prominence on "the
natural" scale - one that uses the white notes of the piano, or, in terms
of
notation, the plain, unaltered notes on the staff. Realistically, in a
Major/minor system, C Major is no more im****tant than A Major, and a minor
no more than c minor. The fact that two keys, a minor and C major happen
to
have no accidentals in their ket signature is just a happenstance of the
system. Every other pair of keys shares the exact same similarity - they
have a specific number of accidentals in the key sig, and they are the
only
pair with that key sig.
But from an educational standpoint, it's easier to deal with the key of C.
How many piano student's first piece is "I am C"!!!
As a guitar teacher, I found it counterproductive to teach notes starting
with C. I started with A on the A string. And how I wish guitar read bass
clef because A would be the note in the first space then!
Best,
Steve
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