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These 7 white notes are named after the first 7 letters of the English alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. After the note ‘G’, the pattern starts over and we get another ‘A’.
semibreve
There are seven notes in a western scale. An octave is an interval. It would be the “eighth note” after the seventh tone in the scale, as compared to the tonic.
The idea behind twelve is to build up a collection of notes using just one ratio. The advantage to doing so is that it allows a uniformity that makes modulating between keys possible.
The word “octave” comes from a Latin root meaning “eight”. It seems an odd name for a frequency that is two times, not eight times, higher. The octave was named by musicians who were more interested in how octaves are divided into scales, than in how their frequencies are related.
15 Singers with 5 Octave Range
To say that a note is one octave higher means to say that the note is the same, but it is in a higher section of the instrument. Imagine a piano. On it, the keys on the left are lower than the keys on the right. As the notes get higher, it is easy to see that the next C will be higher than the previous one.
No, all octaves do not start with C. They do that as a convenience because starting on C produces only the “natural notes” – those of the white keys on the piano – no sharps or flats on the staff. “C-centric-ness” is a result of Tonal music.
From B back to tonic C would again be a semi tone. Hence this pattern is like T TST T TS (T is for tone while S is for semitone). So that’s why C major does not have a sharp or flat. This pattern applies to every Major scale.
Why do B and C and E and F not have a sharp note between them? Simply because, acoustically speaking, there is no room in our current system for another pitch between B and C, or E and F. A sharp always refers to raising the pitch by a half step, and a flat always refers to lowering the pitch by a half step.
The answer is that that the most familiar melodies use the major scale: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. And that is the pattern of steps outlined by the white keys of the piano if you start on C. Naturally the C major scale is therefore the first one everyone learns.
If you’re looking for a more historical reason, it’s because older western instruments were originally tuned for A minor. These instruments could only play the notes of A minor. When western music switched to major, the note names stuck and C major became the default.