I have spent a little over the last 4 months in an agitated mental state. My wife has been confronted with situations where I have been talking to myself in second person, and occasional jumping out of bed thinking I have had a eureka moment. And all this because I dared to ask a simple question - Why are there only seven notes on a music scale?

The Internet is a great source - of knowledge and off-course, confusion too. And someone once said to me, "It is good to be confused, because that means you will try to work towards resolving your confusion !". Now, I am so confused that I am finding myself going in circles explaining the same fundamentals to me in a 100 different ways, hoping that one of them will satisfy my intellectual curiosity. Mind you... there are lots of resources explaining why there are 12 notes on our modern chromatic scale (based on derivation from the Pythagorean Fifths). This derivation however again "assumes" 7 notes in a musical scale !

But as I went to sleep last night, there was a different sense of calm. I think I have found my answer. It may not be the answer that the world accepts. It nevertheless satisfied me. And if that's what it takes for me to get a good night sleep... so be it !

So where does this magic figure of 7 come from? Some suggest that the number 7 is Divine. Hindu religion preaches 7 worlds, 3 below and 3 above earth (totaling to 7). There are seven great sages of Greece. Seven is also the number of nature - 7 colors in a rainbow? Somehow, earth split up exactly into 7 continents (if you count Europe and Asia as separate). Hindu astrology recognizes 7 planets - Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. There are seven "Chakras" in a human body. God built the universe in 7 days. There is enough philosophy out there to make one believe that 7 notes of the music scale was only natural - as I said... Divine perhaps?

But then there are other more pragmatic occurrences of the number 7. 7 represents the number of dimensions one can perceive things (6 directions + time). In geometry, it takes exactly 6 circles of equal radius to surround a seventh. Recent studies show that on an average memory test, people recall up to 7 similar things with ease.

After relentless reading of view points and explanations, I never really came across a practical approach to arrive at the number of notes on a music scale. And so started my sleepless nights and frustrated conversations with myself :-)

Now, to my approach of arriving at the seven notes.... But before that, a few cautions and fundamentals.

• I will try not to use common terms like octave, fifth, or note names (Sa, re, C, D, etc). I found out the hard way that the implicit assumption in all these terms point to seven notes which gave me a lot of grief in structuring out my thoughts.
• I believe that our ancestors were more intellectually brilliant and in touch with nature than we are today. How many of us still know the art of identifying and picking ripe fruits from trees?
• Great work has been done in the past by great people. My research has only filled me with awe for people like Pythagoras who have managed to lay a set of logical rules to define the idiosyncrasies of nature. I am in no way disagreeing with that or going against it. I have merely tried to dumb the concepts down to a level that my intellect can appreciate and assimilate :-)

This is going to be a long boring rant of successive posts for the un-interested. This is my way of releasing the pent up frustration in me while trying to organise my thoughts and understanding. So be warned ;-)