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Major key   /mˈeɪdʒər ki/   Listen
noun
Major  n.  
1.
Greater in number, quantity, or extent; as, the major part of the assembly; the major part of the revenue; the major part of the territory.
2.
Of greater dignity; more important.
3.
Of full legal age; adult. (Obs.)
4.
(Mus.) Greater by a semitone, either in interval or in difference of pitch from another tone.
Major key (Mus.), a key in which one and two, two and three, four and five, five and six and seven, make major seconds, and three and four, and seven and eight, make minor seconds.
Major offense (Law), an offense of a greater degree which contains a lesser offense, as murder and robbery include assault.
Major scale (Mus.), the natural diatonic scale, which has semitones between the third and fourth, and seventh and fourth, and seventh and eighth degrees; the scale of the major mode, of which the third is major. See Scale, and Diatonic.
Major second (Mus.), a second between whose tones is a difference in pitch of a step.
Major sixth (Mus.), a sixth of four steps and a half step. In major keys the third and sixth from the key tone are major. Major keys and intervals, as distinguished from minors, are more cheerful.
Major third (Mus.), a third of two steps.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Major key" Quotes from Famous Books



... is dormant, come that quickening of nature when the green steppes break through snowy coverlets, when swelling buds burst the last, thin ice-films from the branches, and the melancholy peasant-chants come nearer to the major key than at any other season. Now, also, was the time when young blood rushes like sap through the veins, and artists' dreams turn, irresistibly, to the greatest of their subjects. On such a day it was that Joseph Kashkarin ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... up, thinking you must get back to work. Why, you're nearer real work in following the phantoms than mere gray matter ever will unfold for you. Creating is a process of the depths; the brain is but the surface of the instrument that produces. How wearisome music would be, if we knew only the major key! How terrible would be sunlight, if there were no night! Out of darkness and the deep minor keys of the soul come those utterances vast and flexible ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... major. "Where," they asked, "was the unity?" And by way of emphasis they spelled the word Unity with a capital initial. At last, however, some Solomon among editors affixed the missing letters "D. C.," and behold! we had our Unity all right. It was simply a case of a middle piece in the major key of the same tonic, with the notation changed enharmonically for the sake of simplicity, the key of D-flat being, for the majority of players, easier to read ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... demur to their having only the minor key. The natural ascent of the voice is in the major key, and with their exquisite sensibility to sound they could not have missed the obvious expression of cheerfulness. With their three scales, diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic, they must have exhausted every possible expression ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... accompaniment for a sovereign's entrance to his capital. In order to give this fanfare its grandiose character, the author did not take easy refuge in the wailings of a minor key, but he burst into the splendors of a major key. A certain grandeur of movement alone can preserve its gigantesque ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens



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