# Why is C the only major key without black keys? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 16, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506 "2003-08-16T01:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/41 "2003-08-17T17:18:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tusculan \* > \*\*Good info you’ve posted here, **Moe**. Do you mind if I offer a few WAG’s? Not at all. WAG’s are really all I ultimately have to offer as well. > [@](#): > > Personally, I hated the tenor clef. You and me both. I never had to really read it on an instrument, but I had to learn it for my sight-singing class. And yes, I do believe violas use the alto clef. **Zeldar** I believe that the information you have and the conclusions you’ve come to are exactly what most musicians who have not formally studied believe. Don’t feel bad. Your post is almost exactly what I would’ve posted before I studied classical music history. (are you a guitar player by chance?) I’m a guitar player who also played jazz (and rock) (and still do) before I went to school. I’ll see if I can find some links for you when I have time, but in the mean time I’d try a search for “tonality”. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/42 "2003-08-17T17:32:52Z")
Yes, **Moe** , guitar player. Funny thing is, when I was taking some jazz guitar lessons a couple of years ago, I asked the teacher about some of these same topics and he was unashamed to say he didn’t know and didn’t care! He stressed that all the problems other instruments posed were simple on a guitar: you want to change key? Go up or down a few frets. I’m finding things aren’t quite that simple, but it’s still much easier than all the gyrations horn players must have to do. All the same, I am curious about all these issues, teacher’s attitude or not. And I have done some web scouting for answers, including the **tonality** topics you mentioned. Maybe I just haven’t found the place that spells it all out. I seem to get in most trouble when I start making assumptions about what is meant or implied. Like that bit with the “key” a horn is in. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/43 "2003-08-17T17:49:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tusculan \* > \*\*Good info you’ve posted here, **Moe**. Do you mind if I offer a few WAG’s? > 2. For some reason or another then the base scale was started like a minor scale, instead of a major scale. It looks like this is what the OP wondered about. As I understand it, the A-B-C-etc. scale corresponds to the Aeolian mode, but I’m not sure whether that is deliberate. I get the impression that most Gregorian modes are (in modern parlance) like a minor key, see for example the Dorian mode. The ‘dominance’ of major keys may well be a modern development. So maybe around the time the letter-to-note thing got fixed (1500-1600?) it was more natural to put it in minor? > > \*\* I haven’t checked your links so forgive me if this is touched upon, but IIRC the original Gregorian modes were: Dorian, phrygian, lydian, and mixolydian. The first 2 are generally minor in character, while the latter 2 are major (mixolydian is actually dominant but we can call it major for our purposes here). I believe that Aeolian and the others came later (during the Renaissance period), but I’m not exactly sure. Incidentally, the qualities of all seven modes correspond to the diatonic chords of the major scale. Ionian - major Dorian - minor Phrygian - minor Lydian - major Mixolydian - dominant Aeolian - minor locrian - half diminished So, considering dominant to be major (because the 3rd is major) we have 3 major, 3 minor, and 1 evil. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/44 "2003-08-17T17:56:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Don’t violas read the alto clef? Yup. And they are tricky sometimes because they can shift up or down the staff without warning. I have a question. I’m assuimg that if I had an orchestra and I yelled to everyone in my brass section to play a “C”, they would play different pitches. Are novice players confused by this? I know I would be! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/45 "2003-08-17T19:43:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by monstro \* > \*\*Yup. And they are tricky sometimes because they can shift up or down the staff without warning. > > I have a question. I’m assuimg that if I had an orchestra and I yelled to everyone in my brass section to play a “C”, they would play different pitches. Are novice players confused by this? I know I would be! \*\* I doubt they would play different pitches. Although most people do clarify when they want a “Concert C” or an instrument pitch “C”, they would almost certainly transpose the pitch if the conductor just said “C”. The players may have trouble if they are beginners, or if they haven’t previously played in groups, but players with experience playing in a group setting would have no trouble transposing to their instruments. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/46 "2003-08-17T21:21:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zeldar \* > \*\*Yes, **Moe** , guitar player. Funny thing is, when I was taking some jazz guitar lessons a couple of years ago, I asked the teacher about some of these same topics and he was unashamed to say he didn’t know and didn’t care! He stressed that all the problems other instruments posed were simple on a guitar: you want to change key? Go up or down a few frets. > > I’m finding things aren’t quite that simple, but it’s still much easier than all the gyrations horn players must have to do. > > All the same, I am curious about all these issues, teacher’s attitude or not. > > And I have done some web scouting for answers, including the **tonality** topics you mentioned. Maybe I just haven’t found the place that spells it all out. I seem to get in most trouble when I start making assumptions about what is meant or implied. Like that bit with the “key” a horn is in. \*\* Yeah, it is true that transposing is a bit easier on guitar than other instruments for obvious reasons. I’ll leave the issue of what key a horn is in to the horn players since I don’t know much about it, except to explain the concept in a simple way. I have a pennywhistle in the key of “D”. It is a metal flute-like instrument with exactly 6 holes. If I cover all 6 holes I get a D. If I lift one finger at a time from the most distant hole to the closest I’ll go right up the D major scale. All 6 holes open gives me the leading tone (C#), and then there are a couple of ways to get the D octave note. Now can I get chromatic notes? yes. (well, OK not me, but someone who knows what they are doing can). But it involves more complex fingerings (including actually only covering half a hole). So this is what I assume it is like for other wind instruments, i.e. the most logical covering and uncovering of holes remains within a particular key, and other methods are used to get the chromatic notes. As for a site: [here](http://www.teoria.com/reference/scales/09.htm) is one that’ll give you a basic introduction to many things mentioned in this thread, such as tonality and (if you proceed to various pages) the Gregorian modes and the Renaissance modes added later. It is very basic, and to be honest, “tonality” is a concept that takes considerable study to truly understand. I’ll just try to give you a very brief definition and illustration. Tonality refers to a system of composing music whereby a particular pitch is more important than all others. That pitch is like being home. We always want to get there, where things are stable and life is good. When we’re not there, things are less stable and we want to move. This is how music moves through time. This system is based on the major and altered (i.e. mel and harm) minor scales. To demonstrate, play up the C major scale but stop at B: C D E F G A B what do you feel? Just can’t seem to go on with life till you hear that C again huh? B (in the key of C major) is a very unstable note, called the leading tone. It only wants to go to C. It’s like an ion that wants to become part of a stable molecule. Now play A natural minor up the scale but stop at G: A B C D E F G Don’t really feel much pull right? Try the same thing but with a G#: A B C D E F G# Now you want to hear the A. When we start harmonizing these notes with diatonic chords, the tensions and releases are strengthened, but they work the same way. You just look at the notes that make up the chords. Notes always want to move in half steps, that’s how we get places (and why the wholetone scale never feels like we’re getting anywhere). for example, play an F and a B at the same time. The F wants to go down to E and the B up to C. So play the adjacent E and C and you’ll feel completion. It’s the same with jazz, all those ii - V - I’s are simply pulling you back to I. Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/47 "2003-08-17T22:30:09Z")
Thanks, **Moe** , for the clarification on the “altered minor” concept. The leading tone concept is one I have gotten comfortable with gradually and especially the ii-V-I part. One neat trick I did learn from my teacher is how the guitar fretboard makes it easier to grasp the ii-V-I and “cycle of 4ths” (which I hadn’t heard of until him (always thought of it as the cycle of 5ths)) since the bass strings E and A are tuned a perfect 4th apart. Start on the 12th fret and play the octave E and A. The next note on the cycle of 4ths is D which is two frets down the neck on the E string. Play the D and G on the 10th fret and you want to go down another two frets to get to C (8th fret on the E string). Play C and F on the 8th fret and you want to go down another two frets to get to Bb (6th fret on the E string). Play Bb and Eb on the 6th fret and you want to go down two frets to Ab (4th fret on the E string). Play Ab and Db on the 4th fret and you want to go down two frets to Gb (2nd fret on the E string). Here you do the enharmonic shift to make Gb into F# and play F# and B on the 2nd fret and you want to go down to E (open E string). Thus you’ve played the cycle of 4ths from E to E an octave lower. A simple way to remember the cycle as well as the bass notes on the E and A strings. Also, going down by 4ths is equivalent to going **up** in 5ths. Had you started on the octave-A on the 12 fret of the A string, you’d go down two frets to play D and G on the 10th fret, followed by G (10th) and C and F on the 8th, etc., on down to E and A on the open strings. Bottom line: playing the ii-V-I sequences can be done within two frets on the lower two strings. Same logic applies to the A and D strings. I hope that makes sense to non-guitarists. We’re well off-topic of the OP by now, but it’s been fun voyaging through these associated topics. I hope we can get some other threads like this going! I’ve tried several that just fizzle out. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/48 "2003-08-19T18:53:31Z")
**Zeldar** , I was going to email you, because as you pointed out this thread has been derailed enough already, but you didn’t make it available. I don’t check the boards all that often these days, but if there’s any music theory or other related threads out there that aren’t quite getting there please feel free to email me about them anytime (or even if you just wanna chat) and I’ll be glad to offer whatever I can. I also have another neat little trick on guitar that’s sorta an extension of your circle of 4ths thing, but with 7ths and a walking bassline. The best part: it’s so easy even a beginner can do it!! But for now, I’ll just let this thread die the death it deserves. ---
**Author:** ![Omnipresent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8c91f0/32.png) [@Omnipresent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omnipresent)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/49 "2003-08-19T19:39:55Z")
Because C Major is a racist!!! ---
**Author:** ![PurplePerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PurplePerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurplePerson)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/50 "2003-08-19T20:58:55Z")
Two questions: 1. Weren’t there at one time more notes than we use now? Like G sharp and A flat were not the same notes. Wasn’t the scale tempered so it was not so confusing somewhere along the line? 2. Concerning perfect pitch. . . . If a person has a poor memory of the note names on the instrument used, does that mean they do not have perfect pitch even if it seems that they have it ? In college, my choir director would have me hum an A or whatever for the choir to start on. What if I knew the A from another instrument and therefore started the choir on the wrong pitch. To prove perfect pitch the standard seems to be able to sing a . . . . . whatever. What if a person had never learned note names. That would not make him have less perfect pitch would it? I wandered a little on number 2, didn’t I ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/51 "2003-08-19T21:59:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Omnipresent \* > \*\*Because C Major is a racist!!! \*\* [stevie wonder]\*Ebony and Ivory, living in perfect harmony… \*[/stevie wonder] I wonder what key that song is actually in. It would be somewhat ironic if it was in C. > [@](#): > > 1. Weren’t there at one time more notes than we use now? Like > G sharp and A flat were not the same notes. Wasn’t the scale > tempered so it was not so confusing somewhere along the > line? In a word: yes. In a few more words: equal temperament is not about cutting down the number of notes to be less confusing, but about making a compromise to allow all keys to be represented on an instrument equally. If you were to tune a piano according to the ratios of wavelengths that physics tells us are correct, you would indeed have some keys in tune and some keys very out of tune. Equal temperament is a system where each note is equally out of tune, but to a degree negligible enough to our ears so that it sounds fine. > [@](#): > > 1. Concerning perfect pitch. . . . If a person has a poor memory > of the note names on the instrument used, does that mean > they do not have perfect pitch even if it seems that they have > it ? In college, my choir director > would have me hum an A or whatever for the choir to start > on. What > if I knew the A from another instrument and therefore started > the choir on the wrong pitch. To prove perfect pitch the > standard seems to be able to sing a . . . . . whatever. What > if a person had never learned note names. That would not > make him have less perfect pitch would it? I am of the belief that an “A” by any other name is still an “A”. ---
**Author:** ![PurplePerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PurplePerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurplePerson)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/52 "2003-08-19T22:07:10Z")
> [@](#): > > equal temperament is not about cutting down the number of notes to be less confusing, but about making a compromise to allow all keys to be represented on an instrument equally. If you were to tune a piano according to the ratios of wavelengths that physics tells us are correct, you would indeed have some keys in tune and some keys very out of tune. Equal temperament is a system where each note is equally out of tune, but to a degree negligible enough to our ears so that it sounds fine. This would drive a person with perfect pitch crazy, wouldn’t it? I have relative pitch, not perfect pitch. ---
**Author:** ![ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/53 "2003-08-19T22:09:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by PurplePerson \* > \*\* Concerning perfect pitch. . . . If a person has a poor memory > of the note names on the instrument used, does that mean > they do not have perfect pitch even if it seems that they have > it ? In college, my choir director > would have me hum an A or whatever for the choir to start > on. What > if I knew the A from another instrument and therefore started > the choir on the wrong pitch. To prove perfect pitch the > standard seems to be able to sing a . . . . . whatever. What > if a person had never learned note names. That would not > make him have less perfect pitch would it? > \*\* I believe (and I could be wrong) that since a vocalist is generally accompanied by a piano, or by a piano along with other instruments, that “perfect pitch” is generally assumed to mean in the key of C. Though, of course, that would also mean that if someone told you that, say, the trumpet was a B-flat instrument (every note one whole note lower than that on a piano) you could easily translate and vocalize any note on a trumpet scale as well. Also, I don’t believe memory has much to do with it, but rather your ear. I think you can get out of practice such that your ear isn’t as accurate as it once was, but it can always be tuned up. L B-flat trumpet and C piano (classical and jazz) ---
**Author:** ![PurplePerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PurplePerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurplePerson)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506/54 "2003-08-19T22:22:10Z")
“A” is concert pitch. It is memorized in my head and all other pitches I can find in my head are relative to that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-c-the-only-major-key-without-black-keys/195506.md?page=2)