David H. Bailey:
But Andrew Stillerīs book on instrumentation uses the first one you
mentioned and not the second.
At the time I wrote it, Helmholtz was *the* international standard for pitch designations. The whole current mess strikes me as a prime example of what happens when you ignore the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Me, I will continue to insist on Helmholtz until some other universal standard is adopted in its place.
I think the current mess happened because it's easier in digital terms to address things as C1 C2 C3 C4 rather than CC C c c' etc. The debut of midi really muddied the waters, because folks who grew up on midi designation of C4 as middle C find it hard to translate into the Helmholtz way of thinking of octaves.
The C4 system predates MIDI. I first encountered it in the late '70s. One, probably the main, reason why I resist it so fiercely is that, while the Helmholtz system was developed by and for scholars and scientists, the C4 system was devised by commercial interests, viz., manufacturers of electronic keyboards who probably never even heard of Helmholtz and who had no concerns beyond the range of their (at that time) toys. That is why there is a full octave of audible notes below C1 (the lowest note such insts. could play). And there are real, if rare, reasons to speak of notes even lower than "C0". If you want to talk about 64' organ stops, e.g., or the ability of whales to hear and sing notes of lower than 16hz frequency, then good luck: you're in the minus-one octave.
I wonder if Helmholtz had a reason for his nomenclature, and whether he addressed the possibility of simply numbering the octaves.
He put the dividing line between small and capital letters in the middle of the male voice range (at the time, virtually all acousticians and musicologists were men). It would have been better to have it an octave higher, but as with the QWERTY keyboard, once a standard is established, you're stuck with it.
None of the existing systems were divised to count the octave distance between notes, but rather to identify the octave position of single notes. Why would one *need* to figure the interval betw. CC and c''? I don't think I've ever had to do that in my life.
Arguments comparing the C4 system to various international standards in other areas completely miss the point: C4 is not an international standard, as postings to this thread amply testify, but is used only in some countries. If and when it does become an international standard, I will adopt it immediately. But not until.
--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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