Somebody asked me this question the other day and I was very confused – I wondered what they could be talking about. But once he explained the questions I began to understand that it actually made a lot of sense.
C is the starting note for most pieces you start with on the piano and a C major scale is played by playing all the white keys consecutively on the piano. You’d think that because this is the basic foundation of music that the note would be called A and you would then name the other notes accordingly.
Upon thinking about this I began to understand why things evolved this way and why C is the way it is. To understand this concept you’ll have to go way back into time before minor and major tonality was entrenched into Western music.
Originally, music was built on modes. Modes can be started on any of the white keys (and can be transposed to other keys with sharps or flats). For example, the notes from D to D diatonically is the Dorian mode and the Aeolian Mode is from A to A.
The ionian mode, which is the major scale, was not very popular at the time. If you listen to Renaissance music, you will rarely hear something written in the major. At the same time, the minor modes were very popular and the aeolian mode was one of the most popular. This might explain why A is the starting note!
If anybody has different information about this or another explanation I would be glad to hear it. These are my personal thoughts and conjecture based on my knowledge of music and it’s history. I would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on why C is not called A.
I hope you have enjoyed this and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me Robert@LivingPianos.com for more information.