In the previous lesson we stated that hearing major and minor keys involves a cognitive leap, a less clear-cut judgment than hearing major scales and triads. It is unfortunately not the case that in a ...

Each piece of music, be it a song, symphony or concerto, is written in a specific ‘key’. But what do we mean when we refer to a musical key, why are there 24 of them, and how do composers choose which ...

It’s a mysterious thing. Why do songs sound happy or sad depending on whether they’re in a major or minor key? Mathematically the two are barely distinguishable. A song in C major uses the same notes ...

"In Western music, there's nothing that says 'sad' like a minor key," explains the Exploratorium science museum. You don't have to be up on your music theory — or have synesthesia — to recognize when ...

Key changes - or ‘modulations’, to give them their proper, music theory-professor name - may have become a bit of a pop cliché (picture Westlife stepping off their stools), but knowing how to craft a ...

A secondary key used to identify a record. For example, if transactions are sorted by account number and date, account number is the major key and date is the minor key. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR ...