Just use modulo-seven arithmetic...
Anyway, yes, you've shown correctly that mod 7 arithmetic is useful, proving half the great-great-somethingth-parent's point. Now, the remaining interesting cases are the inversion case and the multiplication case, where 0 based is simpler (for me) than 1 based.
Also, the idea of using the word "octave" for "mod 7" is already pretty broken, and is what caused me my initial hesitation.