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Going counter-clockwise from C results in lowering the fourth scale degree with each successive key (starting on F requires a B ♭ to form a major scale). Each major key has a relative minor key that shares the same key signature. The relative minor is always a minor third lower than its relative major.
Although B major is usually considered a remote key (due to its distance from C major in the circle of fifths and fairly large number of sharps), Frédéric Chopin regarded its scale as the easiest of all to play on the piano, as its black notes fit the natural positions of the fingers well; as a consequence he often assigned it first to beginning piano students, leaving the scale of C major ...
By the end of the Baroque era, however, conventional academic views of B minor had shifted: Composer-theorist Francesco Galeazzi (1758–1819) [2] opined that B minor was not suitable for music in good taste. Beethoven labelled a B-minor melodic idea in one of his sketchbooks as a "black key". [3]
Major and minor third in a major chord: major third 'M' on bottom, minor third 'm' on top. Major and minor may also refer to scales and chords that contain a major third or a minor third, respectively. A major scale is a scale in which the third scale degree (the mediant) is a major third above the tonic note.
The 'major' alteration is usually superfluous, as a key description missing an alteration is invariably assumed to be major. In the German notation scheme, a hyphen is added between the pitch and the alteration (D-Dur). In German, Dutch, and Lithuanian, the minor key signatures are written with a lower case letter (d-Moll, d klein, d kleine terts).
For instance, F major is the relative major of D minor since both have key signatures with one flat. Since the natural minor scale is built on the 6th degree of the major scale, the tonic of the relative minor is a major sixth above the tonic of the major scale. For instance, B minor is the relative minor of D major because the note B is a ...
In the Classical period, C major was the key most often chosen for symphonies with trumpets and timpani. Even in the Romantic period, with its greater use of minor keys and the ability to use trumpets and timpani in any key, C major remained a very popular choice of key for a symphony. The following list includes only the most famous examples.
Major/minor compositions are musical compositions that begin in a major key and end in a minor key (generally the parallel minor), specifying the keynote (as C major/minor). This is a very unusual form in tonal music, [1] [2] although examples became more common in the nineteenth century. [3]