Why are there only 7 musical notes? Was it decided to divide sounds like that or are there no more in nature?
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The modern tuning system was developed around the 1500s. There is no real foundation for it in nature, and some cultures use very different tuning systems. It’s just a mathematical formula that’s founded on the idea of the octave (which, I should note, *is* in fact a natural phenomenon).
The western tuning system divides the octave into 12 steps, but there are also systems that divide the octave into 15, 16, even 21 steps. Many scientists believe that the only reason the 12 step scale is so pleasing to our ears is because we are used to it, not because it’s any more “natural” than some other scale.
If you are interested in other scales, [this](https://youtu.be/Ur6GOoSNGN0) is a great video explaining the Bohlen-Pierce scale, a 13 step scale discovered in the 70s. And [here](https://youtu.be/60SYLdMYvcE) is a video of a woman performing a song in the scale. She had a custom built keyboard to play it! To me, it literally sounds like music from another planet. Pretty cool stuff.
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