The ancient Greeks, around 550 BC, believed that there was something mystical about the number three, that it must be godly somehow. Since music was also important, it must be related to three. (btw, this also seems to be a reason why our Christian Church fathers were so adamant about defining to the smallest iota the theology of the Trinity. The Greeks were neurotic about anything related to threes, especially religion.)
Pythagorus utilized a monochord, a crude, one-stringed instrument useful for taking measurements of the precise ratio of the vibrating string. When he halved it, he got the octave above the original plucked string sound. When he divided the string in thirds, he got the perfect fifth above. Okay, that's the end of his experiment, he decided to deduce everything we know about music from that. Yeah, those Greeks were thorough. So he built a scale based on fifths which is our way of saying the ratio 3/2. So, as the ages went by, western music ended up with a scale based on the notes of the circle of fifths: F, C, G, D, A, E, B and the chromatics went beyond that. Of course we added those names to the pitches much later, like 2000 years later. The important part is that if Pythagorus had decided to maybe try the five ratio instead of just threesies, we would very likely have H, I, J, K, and L added to our keyboards today.
Up to around 1600AD western musicians were infatuated with the perfect fifth and perfect fourth, both of which are ratios involving 3 (3/2, and 4/3 respectively). It may also be interesting to note that our current popular music revolves around the I, IV, V chords, the roots of which are the same as above.
Hmm..
Now you can say, "That band is sooo... 6th century... BC."
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