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I have been looking for the answer to this for a long time. The best answer I have found is that C got to be the default through a quirk of organ building.

When you are cutting pipes to length for various pitches, multiples of 8 feet will give you "C" notes. 8 feet is middle C, 4 feet an octave higher, 16 feet an octave lower. All the other notes involve odd fractions and multiples. The C notes were the easiest to cut and measure, so they became the starting point and reference point for organ building. The notes of the scale starting and ending on C became the ones that did not use black keys.

The story of how "A" got to be the tuning note, and how 440 Hz got to be chosen for that pitch, is a whole 'nother story.

Last edited by flatfoot; 06/20/11 09:11 AM.

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