Why is there no B# or E# note on the piano?

Why is there no black note between B and C or between E and F? Well, this is a simple sounding question with a not very simple answer. You'll need to be sitting up in your seat for this one!

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SOURCES:
The Halberstadt organ:

0:00 Introduction
1:20 the Major scale
2:58 Microtonal notes
3:56 the history of music theory
12:23 Temperament
13:29 B# and E# exist in notation

[dskit]

The bigger question is why did they start with "C". Why not have the white key major scale start with "A". That would make more sense....

[thorstambaugh]

Our choir learned to sing quartertones, bright or dark for each chord.
This is extremely tough and takes a lot of practice and a great ear.
But the effect is impressive

[DSteinman]

It wasn't until I started singing choir music that I really appreciated how the voice is the instrument standard notation is optimized for. It really makes it easy to sight-sing major, minor and modal music.

[TheYTViewer]

As someone who is just recently starting to learn the keyboard, the layout actually really helped me memorize the notes. I tinker around in E Major a lot and so I always know where E is, two keys to the left of the group of three black keys. The slight variance on the pattern with black keys is just enough to give every note it’s own little distinctive spot, regardless of what octave you’re in. (Which is also easy to tell just by looking at that pattern)

If it were a perfectly symmetrical layout, either with those black keys added in or with just white keys, it’d be a lot harder to tell where you’re at, especially as a beginner. But as is, it’s akin to having little landmarks to go off of when you’re getting directions.

Seems like it wasn’t even done purposefully but when I realized how much it was helping me I began to really appreciate the design of modern keyboards.

[flamencoprof]

As a guitarist, I think showing the guitar fretboard would help illuminate this question. The keyboard-oriented labelling of the Major scale obscures the fact that It is blindingly obvious on a fretboard that there just isn't a semitone between B & C, and between E & F.
At age 15 or so in the mid-Sixties I taught myself to play guitar by ear and with tablature and never learned to read sheet music. To me, the question initially appeared the other way around: "Why have these musical theorists assigned letters to some notes on the fretboard, but not others?"

[brandonkellner]

Writing B sharp also preserves the chord (or melody) shape on the staff, making it easier to read and remember once you get to the point you're reading several bars ahead of where you're playing.

[bulkvanderhuge]

Imagine how confusing the piano would be if the black and white keys were evenly distributed. The black key that was once an F# in one octave, would now be the G# key in the next octave

[RealWorldMusicTheory]

About why we use C# or Cb. As I learned it‘s not only to avoid more accidentals. It‘s also to make intervals easier to read. If I‘m in the key of G#, a G# triad would be G# - B# - D#. The intervals still look like thirds in sheet music (like a G major triad). Would I use C, that chord would look like a suspended chord at first glance: G# - C - D#. It wouldn‘t resemlbe the familar triad structure we know from sheet music. So adding that C# actually makes the intervals and the chord easier to read.

[mifffalden]

The question that sticks in my mind is how the seven notes in the scale even got to be in the first place. Going by perfect intervals, a 12-tone system emerges clear as day, but I've always wondered why the white notes begin and end where they do on the circle of fifths.

[madeinengland]

David, you are sent from God to explain to us non musical all the questions that confused us in primary school.

[renegrosheintz-laval]

The more interesting question is: why is the scale on a keyboard not based on A, why C?

[DanielGBenesScienceShows]

David, I just discovered your channel And I am highly impressed at how informative and educational your videos are!

[estranhokonsta]

Thanks for the video.
History is always so important to put things in perspective and help us get the actual meaning of things. Everything is always in a context.

[andrewgjennings]

What an incredibly easy way to understand what you said, well done! This has been explained to me over and over, but because I have so little understanding of music and music theory, I never understood any of this. I'll have to go through this a couple of times, because you showed me things I didn't know that I didn't know.

[javiecija]

I think a better explanation for having B# is harmony and scales. The chord G#B#D# is just the V chord of C# Major. If you notate it with C natural, then it would be understood as a different chord for a funcional point of view. In a sense, this is all done so that C# Major doesn't have any repeated note names (C and C#) so that the structure of the major scale is kept.

[matancohen]

Also nice noting that besides having the major scale in the white notes, a cool side effect is having the pentatonic scale in the black ones, which makes them even easier for simple melodies
Best cheat code in the piano

[seiph]

I already knew the answer as to why, but I watched your video anyway because I always enjoy your channel. Keep it up!

[uelmills]

Thanks David. Excellent video. As a guitar player, I am always frustrated by the keyboard layout because The key of C is easy, but every other key is complicated. If they changed the names, and had an equal number of white and black keys, as you pointed out, keyboardists would only need to learn two major scales (one staring on a black key and one starting on a white key). Every scale would be as simple as learning two types. However, it would require an entirely different way of writing sheet music!

[nuberiffic]

I think the note layout actually comes from the minor scale, not the major.

A lot of plain chant was done in minor and our notation system comes from notating plain chant.

It would also make sense to start your scale on A, not C.

[retread]

10:44 Calling B a perfect fourth above g-flat is convenient but also troubling. It quickly drives home the fact we don't need a black key, but writing B above g-flat LOOKS like a third of some type (in this case an augmented third), whether it's on the staff or we look at the letter names. Yes, an augmented third does have the same semitone distance as a perfect fourth (when we're using equal temperament) but we really should write the enharmonic equivalent (c-flat) rather than B when describing a perfect fourth above g-flat.