Why Do Notes Have Names?

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Note names are weird. Depending on where you studied, you probably refer to notes either with letters or a series of arbitrary-seeming nonsense syllables, but, like, why? Where does that come from, and why do we still use it? Well, I decided to look into it with the help of my friend Mark from The Endless Knot, and it turns out it's... well, it's complicated. There's a lot of history, going back all the way to the Greeks and Romans, but the journey we've taken to get to the note names we use today was a really fun one to explore!

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Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

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Hey! Couple extra notes:

1) Some of you may have noticed that, despite being labeled "A", the first note in the Boethian Notation system is a modern B. This is, to the best of my research, how he structured it: The low note that he removed, called the Proslamblanomenos, is what eventually became the modern A. Guido's system (among others) added it back in and adjusted the letters to fit.

2) I took one year of Italian in high school so I'm pretty sure my accent is completely flawless and 100% representative of what an actual Italian speaker sounds like, but on the very unlikely off-chance that it's actually not that good... Sorry, Italy.

3) I had a third thing but I don't remember it now.

4) Oh yeah! It's somewhat over-crediting to say that Sarah Glover invented Movable Do. That's my fault, not Mark's: I wrote that section of the script, and I take full responsibility for the error. She invented Tonic Sol-Fa, which is the system that modern Movable Do evolved from, but as mentioned in the video, the idea of flexible names based on scale degree rather than absolute pitch goes back at least to Guido's hexachord mutations. Sorry, and again, that's on me, not Mark.

tone

I'm sure you'll get this, but whenever this has come up on my channel, viewers from Germanic countries want to know about their "H" system! From what I understand (likely an apocryphal story) the natural B durum changed into the letter H because of a the bad transcription of one monk, and it became the fashion to write B durum that way.

AdamNeely

Who coined such a modest title of the "Greater Perfect System"?

stevonico

In Japanese music is written as ongaku(音楽) which means to enjoy sound（音を楽しむ）

ChuuniYuusha

I am from a country where we use the Fixed Dó system, but I get to watch a huge amount of US musicians content. After struggling a little to make associations, I realized that Fá is F in letter notation. So I used this as a anchor to memorize the rest. I hope to have contributed (a tiny bit) to the content. Cheers

malcelinho

When there’s a video about names and you’re not invited D:

NameExplain

Great vid! I'm a biologist with no musical skill, but your vids make it so easy to learn about something completely outside my field in an interesting way.

greensteve

Guys, a tip: if you find yourself having to go back constantly because you're like me and your mind wanders when you're tired, just watch 12tone's videos at 0.75x speed. Seriously, finally decided to do that with this video and I was able to process way more information. Still, I much prefer this type of videos over those by YouTubers who speak too slow. 12tone and Mark, thanks for another awesome video!

TheLuizSouza

For you next song dissection, you should do Tool's "Schism". It would be a super cool discussion of changing time signatures, polyrhythms, interesting chords, and modulation!

mastercheif

More collaborations with Mark! This video was really fantastic and I think we all look forward to more like this!

VioletIsla

This is by far your best video yet! Its so incredibly well structured, and explained in an easy way while covering a lot of information.
Bravo!

MCMeru

As always, your explanations rock. Thank you so much, and thanks to Mark, who is also a cool YT presence!

rrrosecarbinela

Movable do is also used in Hungary, it is part of the Kodály method, too (he actually visited England and integrated it into his pedagogical methods). It's not always easy to work together with Transylvanian or Subcarpathian Hungarians because fixed do is preferred in Ukraine and Romania (unless they somehow get used to movable do).

harczymarczy

So much new knowledge! And already my sax playing is improving!

mcmasti

Alright big chap.... I come to your channel via Tom Scott.... I'm really not much of a music fan, but I have to say that, as a soulless engineer, your deconstruction of music actually makes it more accessible to me. I'm interested to know (from your music theory perspective) if there is anything special about Bohemian Rhapsody. For me it seems to have some "magical" component that makes it resonate (that's too strong but get my drift) and so it makes me wonder if there is something to the composition that can be abstracted or perhaps compared to other songs that have a similar contemporary cultural significance.

fergusmgraham