I can't answer Jon Johanning's question about note-value names, but it
reminded me of something else I've never understood (or, to be honest,
bothered to investigate very hard).  Why is the note A called "A" and C
called "C", when it would be rather more logical to have the one we know
as C (i.e.  the first note of the all-white-note major scale on the piano)
called "A", so that its scale would run ABCDEFGA' and we wouldn't have
to cope with a musical "alphabet" that runs out-of-phase with the letter
alphabet? Naming the letters my way would be much more intuitive and
I imagine that it would make life easier for many children learning
elementary theory.  I know that it would have helped me, those many years
ago (just as the American note-value system would have helped - I was
delighted to discover some logic in musical terminology when I discovered
it after years of teachers trying to get me to remember the difference
between a minim and a quaver).

Ian
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