&quot;Astonishingly, there are no known terms corresponding to a single note&quot;<p>While perhaps counter-intuitive, that actually makes a lot of sense, tell the person the interval to play not the note itself. I think people new to music would pick up music much more quickly if we switched to a system like this.  In my limited experience, one of the biggest early hurdles in learning music is making terms with intervals &gt; notes.