C major

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C major (often just C) is a musical major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C. Its key signature contains no flats or sharps.

Image:C maj.png

Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor. C major is one of the most commonly used key signatures in music. Most transposing instruments playing in their home key are notated in C major, for example, a clarinet in B-flat playing a B-flat major scale is notated as playing a C major scale. The white keys of the piano correspond to the C major scale. A harp tuned to C major has all its pedals in the middle position.

Many Masses and Te Deums in the Classical era were in C major. 19 of Haydn's 104 symphonies are in C major, making it his second most often used main key. Before the invention of the valve trumpet, Haydn did not write trumpet and timpani parts in his symphonies, except those in C major.

Of Franz Schubert's two symphonies in the key, the first is called the "Little C major" and the second "the great C major."

Although not terribly difficult for a guitar, C major is not considered ideal for the instrument. The three notes of the dominant chord (G, B & D) are available as open strings, but the root of the tonic chord is not.

French composers such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Rameau generally thought of C major as a key for happy music, but Hector Berlioz in 1856 described it as "serious but deaf and dull." Vaughan Williams was impressed by Sibelius's Symphony No. 7 in C major and remarked that only Sibelius could make the key sound fresh.

A notable modern use of the key is Terry Riley's In C, often considered to be the first minimalist composition.

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