> For historical reasons, there are no sharps or flats between the notes B/C, and E/F.
Come on, that is not for "historical reasons", that is because those notes are only one semitone apart!
Come on, that is not for "historical reasons", that is because those notes are only one semitone apart!
"For historical reasons the notes B/C and E/F are one semitone apart."
The names of the notes and scales are due to historical reasons, but a major third and a fourth is one semitone apart due to math, not history.
Also, what devnonymous says, which I agree with too (but that's another story...)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_equal_temperament
The linked article actually explains the math pretty well.
I know near zero music history, but I was under the impression that that's the evolution from diatonic scales and eventually into our western music system.
Of course a lot of other stuff in music and music theory is due to history and tradition. For example the names of the intervals (octave, fourth, fifth etc.) presumes a 7-note scale. Using 7 as reference is tradition, e.g. the pentatonic scale has 5 notes.
That's our point.
What I meant was that the interval between a major third and fourth in a 12-tone chromatic scale has to be a semitone due to math, not due to some historical accident or decision.
It might be an accident of history that we use a 12-step scale in the first place though, since you can have arbitrary many intervals in an octave - but you can't just divide the octave in arbitrarily places and get music out of it. The intervals still have to be ratios.
(Well I'm sure some avant-garde composer have tried making music with intervals that are not ratios just to be clever, but I hope you get my point!)