Christine Labroche's post was quite informative.  I was not familiar with
the visual system used in the Latin countries, but I was familiar with the
numerical German system.  Could it have been that German music teachers
were more influential in colonial America than in England? But this does
not explain why the German system of naming pitches (B = b-flat, H = b
natural, etc.) was not also adopted.

I am not completely sure of the answer to Ian Crisp's question about
the names for the pitches A and C, etc., but I think it has to do with
two historical processes, one leading from the ancient Greek modes to the
medieval plainsong modes and then to the modern scale system, and the other
from the notation for plainsong pitches to the modern system using staves.
(My information here is from the CD-ROM Encyclopedia Britannica.)

The Greeks arranged the notes in decending order, forming tetrachords
or 4-note groups in which the intervals were 2 whole tones and one
semitone.  For example, the tetrachord E-D-C-B (using the modern names
for the pitches) was extended by another tetrachord to form the Dorian
mode:  E-D-C-B A-G-F-E.  This was then used as the basis for the whole
system, called the Greater Perfect System, in which a third tetrachord was
added on top and a fourth on the bottom (these were not simply placed above
and below the Dorian mode, but linked to the end notes of the first two
tetrachords to make a two-octave span):  A G F E D C B A G F E D C B.

Then, by the medieval period (hope I haven't lost you yet), the modes had
come to be turned upside down (so that they were thought of as ascending,
the way we do scales now).  Then, the whole system came to be based on what
was then called the Hypodorian mode (A B C D E F G A), rather than the
Dorian.  Then the letters of the Latin alphabet were used to name the
notes, thus explaining (I think) why A is the name for the pitch we call
"A," the starting pitch of the whole system.

The reason the C scale is the one with all "natural" pitches I am not
so sure of, but it must have something to do with the development of
the modern system of notation, which took place from the 13th to the 16th
century or so.  At firzt, pitches were not notated at all, because everyone
knew the plainsongs pretty much by heart, and only needed some vague, wavy
lines above the text to remind them of how the melody rose and fell in each
syllable and from syllable to syllable.  Eventually the pitches came to be
notated more exactly by using a horizontal line grid imposed over these
wavy lines.  At that point, the pitch F was indicated by a red line and C
by a yellow line, or the letters F and C were placed at the beginnings of
these lines.  This of course developed into the modern F, C, and G clefs.
So the pitches F and C were apparently considered fundamental ones in this
system, and it looks as though C eventually won out (I don't know when or
why) as the most fundamental one, as far as notation was concerned.

Thus, when sharps and flats came to be used to indicate "accidentals," the
(major) C scale was taken to be the one without any accidentals, and later
on, when keyboard instruments were invented, the keys were obviously laid
out so that the C scale could be played without using the accidental keys.
Thus, the letter names for the pitches and the notational convention which
made C the "natural" scale were entirely different inventions, unrelated
to each other.  This discrepancy has bothered Ian, and many another music
student, no end ever since, but at this point there isn't much we can do
about it, short of abandoning this whole harmonic system, but that doesn't
look as though it will happen any time soon.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]