You are hereHomeBARSeptember/October 1980World’s Oldest Musical Notation Deciphered on Cuneiform TabletStep-by-Step Decoding of Musical Notation On a piano on which you could use the black keys, the half-steps in any major scale will always fall between the third and fourth notes and the seventh and eighth notes. This would be true whether you started your scale on C or D or any other note. Join the BAS Library! Already a library member? Log in here. Institution user? Log in with your IP address.