[theOnliest]

> Why does notation allow for seven pitches, not 12? Because music is at most built out of 7-note scales, not 12.

This answer is good, but I wanted to pick one tiny nit, which is that not all music is built out of 7-note scales. A lot of music is, but music that isn't doesn't often lie well on the staff. That's true, incidentally, whether there are more than 7 notes in the scale (12-tone music, lots of octatonic music from people like Stravinsky, Scriabin, etc.) or fewer (whole-tone music comes to mind, as does the slightly more esoteric hexatonic scale). Pentatonic music fits well on the staff because the pentatonic scale is a subset of the ordinary diatonic.

[soundwave106]

Probably the correct way to phrase this is Western sheet notation was designed around the diatonic scale. Western art music rarely deviated a lot from diatonic until the late 19th / early 20th century.

Another way would be to say, "most music historically has been built out of 7-note scales", because from my perspective, that would be correct... the vast majority of music systems in the world are either heptatonic or pentatonic. There are obviously exceptions (Gamelan scales for a start -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slendro), but to be honest I can't think of any historical octatonic or higher scales at the moment. I'm sure they exist, but they seem pretty rare (until the late 19th / early 20th century classical era that is).