Why Does A Keyboard Start With ‘C’ Note?

In the musical instrument notes, Middle ‘C’ is a highly debated question, “Why does a keyboard or a piano start with middle C instead of A?”. There are various pitch notations which may be one reason for the usage of C.

Some relate the reason with the organ instrument. Some reasons say about the grand staff. Let us try to understand why any notes start with ‘C’.

Pitch Notation

Middle C is the fourth C key from the left on a standard 88-key piano keyboard is C4 in scientific pitch notation, C′ in Helmholtz pitch notation, and it is note number 60 in MIDI notation. Someone playing a Western concert flute has a higher and narrower playing range than the piano, while C5 would be Middle C. 

The frequency of the C ranges between 8.176 Hz to 16744.06Hz. The frequency of the middle C4 is 261.626 Hz. This technically inaccurate practice has led some to encourage standardizing on C4 as the definitive Middle C in instructional materials across all instruments. 

The Grand Staff

Middle C, called middle C because it is in the middle of the grand staff. Piano music is most commonly notated on the grand staff. The grand staff is the combination of treble and bass clef joined with a bracket.

Middle-C is with a ledger line above the top line of the Bass staff or below the bottom line of the Treble staff. The treble clef is the tool most commonly used to denote music in the right hand on the piano. The Bass clef is the tool most commonly used to denote music in the left hand on the piano. The bass clef notes are most commonly found below middle C.

Major C Scale

The major scale can start on any note. The most familiar melodies use the major scale: 

‘Whole Step, Whole Step, Half Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, Half Step’

This is the pattern of steps outlined by the white keys of the piano if you start on C scale. Naturally the C major scale is therefore the first one everyone learns. And "middle C" is the pitch exactly between the treble and bass clefs used in piano music. 

C major is one of the many transpositions of the major scale. The real distinction is that it shall play using none of the piano's black keys. On the violin it has no special status at all. The C major key signature contains no flats or sharps. 

Organ Instrument

Some reason suggests the designer of the musical instrument designed the keyboard around the C major scale does not come from the piano - it started with the organ instrument.

Organ builders discovered long ago that a pipe of 8 feet will give a note close to the pitch called C. This was a convenient place to start. Measuring and cutting a pipe to 8 feet is comparatively easy. Other notes require pipes of odd fractional lengths. So assign the scale you get from all the white keys assigned to the pipes that started with C. The other keys and their corresponding lengths of pipes developed from that C.

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