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  "slug": "why-are-there-12-notes",
  "title": "Why are there 12 notes?",
  "kind": "solo",
  "listenUrl": "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Why-are-there-12-notes-evsvk9",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-14",
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    "normalizedSchema": "v1",
    "transcribedAt": "2026-06-09T11:13:13.630Z"
  },
  "paragraphs": [
    {
      "startSec": 1.42,
      "endSec": 32.42,
      "text": "settle down, come, come, come, settle down.So today we are going to speak about Pythagorasand the reason why we have 12 musical notesin the western canon.So yeah, for real, we're actually going to talk aboutwhy we only have 12 notes in western music.And also basically to set this all up,it's entirely arbitrary.We just decided that there were 12.There is not some innate realitythat makes it 12 notes."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 32.42,
      "endSec": 59.42,
      "text": "Instead, it's kind of what we're accustomed to.But I want to entertain the argument as wellthat there is some fundamental reasonwhether or 12.And to do that, we actually do have to go back to Pythagoras.So he's the guy Pythagorean Theorem A squared plus B squaredequals C squared.He's kind of mythical.My favorite thing about him is that he thought thateating beans was the devil.And so he forbade all of his followers"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 59.42,
      "endSec": 88.42,
      "text": "to worship math and never eat beans.The musical fruit, ironically.And Pythagoras, or his school,or just they attributed it to himbecause it made it sound fancierbecause he has a cool name.Established something that we call a perfect fifth.So just naming something perfect definitely gives it a lot of weight.And the reason why he was so into itwas it was a mathematical ratio of three to two."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 88.42,
      "endSec": 122.42,
      "text": "So it was like a relationship,just like a triangle or a square.And musical notes are just frequencies.The most widely known frequency is A,which we generally set to 440 hertz.And so that's just how quickly sound is reverberating.How quickly something is oscillating.It's that speed that determines the pitch, the frequency.You can also think of a frequency like a wave.How quickly that wave repeats and oscillates."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 122.42,
      "endSec": 151.42,
      "text": "So Pythagoras said three to two ratio.Let's keep that up and start stacking notes.And so we based everything around what is called that perfect fifth.To build a perfect fifth,you just use that three to two ratioon the original starting pitch that starting frequencyand you work your way up.It'll be easier if I play it for you.So here's an A.Here's a perfect fifth up, an E.And then for E, a perfect fifth up, a B."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 151.42,
      "endSec": 184.71,
      "text": "And for B, a perfect fifth up, F sharp.F sharp, perfect fifth up, C sharp.Now let's keep going.Let's just go all the way.Here is perfect fifth all the way up.And then check out what ends up happening.We're back at A.We reach the same place that we took off from.So the concept of repeating notes can be a little weirdand again, it's easier just to hear it rather than me explain it.So here are a whole bunch of A's."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 184.71,
      "endSec": 212.71,
      "text": "These are all the same notes.And all that we're doing to create the same note, quote unquote,is by doubling up the frequency.So something that's at 440 is equal to something that is at 880or is equal to something that is at 220.Those are all A's.It's a certain flavor that we get.And this is really something that I think is where musicshould be fundamentally based rather than the perfect fifth,the perfect octave."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 212.71,
      "endSec": 236.71,
      "text": "By focusing on the perfect octave,then we can be more inclusive of other traditions,other cultures, other ways of looking at music.By seeing that there is a certain flavor to notes repeating,but that also allows us gradients in between notes,creating something where we don't just have a 12 note scale.And I think that's pretty cool thing.But for most pop songs, we're dealing with a perfect fifth centric world."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 236.71,
      "endSec": 273.69,
      "text": "And because of that, we only have 12 notes at our disposal.So let's recap real quick how we got those 12 notes.We're back at A.We reached the same place that we took off from.And so that's why we end up having 12 notes.Is it actually there are 12 steps to get from A way down there,that super low version of A, up to A again by way of fifths.There's also a thing called the circle of fifths,"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 273.69,
      "endSec": 294.69,
      "text": "which is basically just setting all of this in a geometric pattern,so you can use it for composition.It's a circle because the fifths always repeat.Wherever you take off from, you will always end up in the same place.If you progress up 12 fifths.And so because of that, we get 12 notes.But basically what this is saying is that fifths are where we derive our pitches,"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 294.69,
      "endSec": 325.69,
      "text": "and fifths are where we just derive the 12 note scale,perpetrarily because of English takes on A through G.These sharps and flats are basically just the things in betweento be able to get perfect fifths for every single scale.So Western music in my opinion is entirely based on this very simple concept.And the idea is that humans love aesthetics.So we love symmetry, we love things in nature that bring us awe."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 325.69,
      "endSec": 348.69,
      "text": "And the concept is that this is symmetry and mathematics and beauty in play through audio,in a way that we're perceiving these ratios without necessarily knowing what's going on.I'm not sure I completely buy it because I think that there are a lot of other waysto experience music, and I think that there are other cultures throughout the world that approve that."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 348.69,
      "endSec": 369.69,
      "text": "I think a lot of it is just kind of what we're accustomed to.But at the same time it is an alluring idea to think that there is some sort of order to all of thisand that music in the 12 note scale is reflecting that order.In reality, I think it's one of those situations where we're creating order.And the same way that architecture can be really beautiful,"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 369.69,
      "endSec": 393.69,
      "text": "I think that this is just another kind of man-made way of looking at the world and looking at music.That doesn't mean it's wrong, that doesn't mean it's bad.But I don't think that that necessarily means that by seeing the beauty in a perfect fifth,by seeing a beauty in the 12 note scale, it's not like this is the way it always was,this is the way it ought to be, this is some sort of God's hand in music."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 393.69,
      "endSec": 418.69,
      "text": "I think it's just kind of a cool neat thing that we figured outand then happened to base a bunch of pop songs around, so now we feel comfy with it.We basically just decided the fifth is the most important interval.Let's carry it all the way up and look, it repeats proof of order and not chaos in the universe.The problem is that it's not exactly perfect, which kind of piss people off,"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 418.69,
      "endSec": 442.69,
      "text": "and we created something called equal temperament, which is just a fancy way of saying,fudging the numbers so that it feels perfect enough.And by doing that, we ended up kind of having to take those perfect ratiosthat Pythagoras thought proved, you know, God incarnate in music and fudge it a little bitso that we could lay it all out on a piano.And that's the music we were used to."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 442.69,
      "endSec": 460.69,
      "text": "If you grew up listening to music that was tempered differently, you would be used to that music.If you grew up to music that wasn't 12 note music, you would be used to that music.And so saying that 12 notes is the way that it always has been in the way it always will be"
    },
    {
      "startSec": 460.69,
      "endSec": 490.69,
      "text": "is just like saying the English language is, you know, the best or the language.It's mostly just arbitrary.It's just because that group of people conquered most of the world.And so now I'm explaining this concept of 12 notes in the English language,both pretty arbitrary decisions that, you know, I don't really have any say over.That said, we can do some really dope stuff with that 12 note scale."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 490.69,
      "endSec": 505.69,
      "text": "And we can do some really cool stuff messing with it.Changing that temperament, changing the way that you expect notes to play outbased on that long tradition of Western music coming out of Greece."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 506.69,
      "endSec": 532.69,
      "text": "And so in these next few episodes, we're going to go beyond just individual notesand talk about how they can kind of work together.And how later we can play with that temperament, play with that tuning, play with that pitch,to create great tension, great release, great emotion, great surprise,and doing it all perfectly from a place of imperfection."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 532.69,
      "endSec": 561.69,
      "text": "So shout out to Pythagoras, but at the same time, we can't give him too much creditbecause we just happen to be living in his system.It's not like we had to.It's not like we go see aliens and they're going to be listening to pop songs with power chords,which is a root and a perfect fifth.So perfect fifth, not so perfect.Perfect octave, pretty damn perfect to me, subjectively."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 561.69,
      "endSec": 584.69,
      "text": "Also, just wanted to throw out that I played some of my own music as underscore,including this insane chiptune version of Don't Worry that I didn't mean to put into the podcast.It just imported this way and I thought it was funny.Also part of the reason why I picked the songs that I did is that I didn't use perfect tuning in a lot of them.And I figured that'd be kind of ironic."
    },
    {
      "startSec": 584.69,
      "endSec": 640.94,
      "text": "Anyway, join me on the next episode of Music 101,and we'll dig into how these notes all play together and something called chords and harmony.You can check out some of my music videos, all that kind of stuff at www.scoobertdoobert.pizza.www.scoobertdoobert.pizza.Wait.www.scoobertdoobert.pizza.www.scoobertdoobert.pizza"
    }
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