Hcfyk

(Disclaimer: I don't know much about music theory but ...)

The notes A, B are a whole step apart, and B, C are a semitone apart, yet their distance in standard notation is the same visually (from a space to a line, ... etc). Why ?

It's unnecessarily difficult to identify intervals like fifths or thirds. Is it just a historical accident or is there a deeper reason behind it ?

It DOES preserve intervals (visually). What it does NOT tell you is whether those intervals are major or minor (or augmented or diminished). The distance of a space to its adjacent line will always be a second of some sort. This is because in part of history (which requires a discussion of Church modes and the history of notation), and partly because the notes on the staff change depending on what clef I give it as well as what key signature I give it. I will always know that a line to the next line, or a space to the next space, will be a third of some sort, but I only know what kind of third (and also what the notes are) if I am given more information, namely clef and key signature.

It's actually easier to find 3rds and 5ths. 3rds are on the next line or space, and 5ths are on the next but one. As in F is on bottom space in treble clef, A (3rd higher) is on the next space. In key E, with 4#, E is on the bottom line, G# (3rd) is on the nexy line up, and B (5th) is on the next line up from that. (Next but one from E). Once the key signature is established - it's at the beginning of each line - there's no problem. I think if there was always a problem for the last few hundred years, something would have been changed.

A shallow answer as to why standard notation does not preserve intervals visually in terms of numbers of semitones is that modern standard notation evolved around the ideas that:

• the octave is split into 12 identifiable notes, each a semitone apart


• every particular piece of music would be based around a diatonic scale, which represents a 7-note subset of those 12 identifiable notes in the octave in a particular pattern which itself has uneven sizes of intervals.

The stave in standard notation without a key signature depicts the C major scale and its modes (all of which are Diatonic scales). Adding a key signature allows it to depict other diatonic scales, and the use of accidentals allows all possibilities in the 12-note (chromatic) scale.