Key profile · major key
C Major: Scale, Key Signature and Chords
C major has no sharps or flats. Scale: C D E F G A B. Chords, staff and sound, and how often real songs use it: 95 of 1,462 art songs, 5th of 24 keys.
Short answer
C major has no sharps or flats. Its scale is C – D – E – F – G – A – B. Its relative minor, A minor, uses the same key signature; its parallel minor, C minor, starts on the same note. In the 1,462 art songs of the OpenScore Lieder corpus, 95 are in C major (6.5% of the corpus), which makes it the 5th most common of the 24 keys.
- C1
- D2
- E3
- F4
- G5
- A6
- B7
- 0key signature: no sharps or flats
- 95of 1,462 Lieder songs are in C major (5th of 24 keys)
- 367of 1,974 Mutopia scores (1st of 24)
Counts come from open datasets: OpenScore Lieder is a library of mostly 19th-century European art songs, so the statistics describe that repertoire (plus the Mutopia scores and the catalogues named below), not music in general. Major or minor is an estimate for the Lieder; the key signatures are read exactly. Details are under “How this was counted”.
The C major scale, its notes and its chords
The major scale is built from the steps whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. In C major the two half steps fall between the 3rd and 4th degrees (E and F) and between the 7th and 8th degrees (B and C); every other neighbouring pair is a whole step.
Every chord is built from the notes of the scale by stacking thirds, so the spellings follow the key signature.
| Degree | Note | Name | Chord on it | Triad notes | Seventh chord |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C | Tonic | I (C) | C – E – G | Cmaj7 (C – E – G – B) |
| 2 | D | Supertonic | ii (Dm) | D – F – A | Dm7 (D – F – A – C) |
| 3 | E | Mediant | iii (Em) | E – G – B | Em7 (E – G – B – D) |
| 4 | F | Subdominant | IV (F) | F – A – C | Fmaj7 (F – A – C – E) |
| 5 | G | Dominant | V (G) | G – B – D | G7 (G – B – D – F) |
| 6 | A | Submediant | vi (Am) | A – C – E | Am7 (A – C – E – G) |
| 7 | B | Leading tone | vii° (Bdim) | B – D – F | Bm7♭5 (B – D – F – A) |
The key signature of C major
C major has no sharps and no flats in its key signature: the scale uses only the notes without accidentals (the white keys of the piano). The same signature belongs to A minor, so a piece with this signature can be in either key; the last chord and the notes the melody leans on decide which. The key signature chart shows all 15 signatures.
C major on the staff, and how it sounds
The staves show the scale one octave from C. The buttons play the scale, the tonic chord (C) and the cadence I–IV–V–I, which in this key is C → F → G → C. Sound is made in your browser; nothing is downloaded. Without scripts the notes are listed under each staff.
C D E F G A B C
C B A G F E D C
Tonic chord: C = C – E – G. Cadence I–IV–V–I: C (C – E – G) → F (F – A – C) → G (G – B – D) → C.
musictheoryprint.com/keys/c-major/ — C major, no sharps or flats
C major in real scores
Everything below was counted from open collections of real music, not written from memory. The Lieder are the main source because their key signatures are read directly from the notation.
Art songs. The OpenScore Lieder corpus holds 1,462 songs, nearly all from the 19th century. 95 of them are in C major: 6.5% of the corpus and 9.4% of the 1,006 songs estimated to be major, which makes it the 5th most common of the 24 keys by song count. Of the 184 songs whose key signature is no sharps or flats, 95 were estimated to be in C major and 89 in A minor.
Free scores. The Mutopia Project has 1,974 scores with a readable key; 367 are in C major (18.6%, 1st of 24 keys). Most of them are for piano (97), guitar (93) and voice or choir (82), and the styles listed in the library are mainly classical (112), baroque (84) and romantic (60).
Keys are merged by sound, so F♯ major and G♭ major are one key here. An even split over 24 keys would be 4.2% each. Rank 1 is the key with the most items in that dataset.
| Dataset | What is counted | In this key | Share | Rank of 24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | art songs; key signature plus estimated mode | 95 | 6.5% | 5th |
| Mutopia Project | free scores; key from MIDI or LilyPond source | 367 | 18.6% | 1st |
| MusicBrainz, Key attribute | catalogued works; key entered by editors | 1,453 | 10.6% | 2nd |
| MusicBrainz, key in title | catalogued works; key read from the English title | 463 | 8.7% | 3rd |
| Open Opus | works by 77 composers; key read from the work title | 417 | 11.6% | 1st |
| AcousticBrainz | recordings; machine-estimated key (strength 0.6 or more) | 5,202 | 8.2% | 1st |
The corpus has no composition dates, so songs are grouped by the composer’s birth year. The group where C major takes the largest share is composers born 1870 or later (9.4%).
| Composer group | Songs in the corpus | In C major | Share of the group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Composers born before 1770 | 64 | 3 | 4.7% |
| Born 1770–1809 | 224 | 10 | 4.5% |
| Born 1810–1839 | 509 | 27 | 5.3% |
| Born 1840–1869 | 499 | 40 | 8.0% |
| Born 1870 or later | 159 | 15 | 9.4% |
Songs written in C major
The line under each song gives its time signature, its length, the lowest and highest note of the vocal line and how the melody begins and ends. Song titles are the corpus’s own; the composer names link to the composer pages of this site.
8 songs written in C major
- An die Tauben Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)from 9 Lieder und Gesänge, Op.634/4 · 70 bars · voice E4–A♭5 · melody begins on the 3rd (E), ends on the 1st (C)
- Am Meer Franz Schubert (1797–1828)from Schwanengesang (D.975)2/2 · 45 bars · voice D4–F5 · melody begins on the 1st (C), ends on the 1st (C)
- Aubade-Habanera Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (1847–1903)from 20 Mélodies2/2 · 87 bars · voice B3–G5 · melody begins on the 3rd (E), ends on the 1st (C)
- Ich grolle nicht Robert Schumann (1810–1856)from Dichterliebe, Op.484/4 · 36 bars · voice C4–E5 · melody begins on the 3rd (E), ends on the 1st (C)
- Am Wasserfall Josephine Lang (1815–1880)from 6 Lieder, Op.123/4 · 87 bars · voice C4–G5 · melody begins on the 2nd (D), ends on the 1st (C)
- Frage nicht Robert Franz (1815–1892)from 6 Gesänge, Op.143/4 · 20 bars · voice B3–F5 · melody begins on the 3rd (E), ends on the 1st (C)
- Abschied von Italien Johanna Kinkel (1810–1858)from 6 Lieder, Op.1612/8 · 19 bars · voice D4–F5 · melody begins on the 3rd (E), ends on the 1st (C)
- Alleluia Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944)3/4 · 41 bars · voice B3–D5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 1st (C)
Chosen from 95 songs in C major by a fixed rule: songs where the automatic chord analysis agrees with the estimated mode and whose signature never changes come first, then composers with a page on this site, then the composers best represented in the corpus, one song per composer.
What the songs in C major do
The 95 songs in C major were looked at as a group: how they end, how their melodies begin and end and how high and low the voice goes. The chord analysis covers 79 of them (it exists for 1,156 of the 1,462 songs in the whole corpus).
56.2% of the 73 songs in C major close with a perfect authentic cadence, V→I with both chords in root position; over all analysed songs the figure is 57.6%, so C major is below the corpus average. 82.2% of the endings land on a tonic chord (I or i). The chord labels are software output, and a “cadence” here is just the last pair of chords: no phrase structure is detected.
The number of songs that contain the progression at least once in a major-key passage (the analysis labels each passage with its own key, so a song that visits another major key adds to the count). Chords are Roman numerals; sevenths and inversions count as the same chord.
| Chord progression | Songs in C major | Share of its 79 analysed songs | Share over all 1,156 analysed songs |
|---|---|---|---|
| V–I | 70 | 89% | 87% |
| I–V–I | 63 | 80% | 72% |
| IV–V–I | 24 | 30% | 29% |
| I–IV–V–I | 14 | 18% | 17% |
| ii–V–I | 39 | 49% | 43% |
| I–IV–V | 17 | 22% | 21% |
In 22% of these 64 songs the analysis finds a section of at least 8 bars in some other key; with a 4-bar threshold the figure is 53%. The result depends strongly on the threshold, so treat it as a rough picture rather than a measurement.
The vocal line of the median song in C major runs from C4 up to G5 (95 songs measured); across all 1,458 songs the medians are D4 and G♭5. A singer’s voice, not the key, mostly decides the range: editors and composers chose the key to fit it, so this tells you what these songs asked of the voice, not what the key demands.
C major in catalogues and recordings
MusicBrainz. Editors have entered a key for 13,669 catalogued works (parts and arrangements excluded); 1,453 of them are in C major, 10.6% of those works and 2nd of 24 keys. Reading the key from the English work title instead (“… in C major”) finds 463 of 5,340 titles in C major (3rd of 24).
Open Opus. 417 of the 3,587 Open Opus work titles that name a key are in C major (1st of 24 keys). Of the works that the editors flagged as popular, 10 are in C major; of the works they recommend, 24. By genre, C major is among the eight commonest keys for orchestral (145 of 1,045 orchestral works), chamber (108 of 1,059 chamber works), vocal (23 of 139 vocal works) and keyboard (141 of 1,349 keyboard works).
Recordings. Software that estimates the key of commercial recordings (AcousticBrainz, high-confidence estimates only) puts 5,202 of 63,124 recordings in C major (1st of 24 keys). Estimates like this are known to lean to some keys, so use the figure only as a rough comparison with the written music.
Only work types with at least 100 keyed works, and only where C major is among the keys listed for the type in mb-work-keys.json (the file keeps the 8–14 commonest keys per type).
| Work type (MusicBrainz) | Works with a key | In C major | Share | Rank in the type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Songs | 2,241 | 230 | 10.3% | 1st |
| Concertos | 2,051 | 247 | 12.0% | 2nd |
| Sonatas | 1,693 | 179 | 10.6% | 1st |
| Symphonies | 1,098 | 144 | 13.1% | 2nd |
| Quartets | 578 | 44 | 7.6% | 5th |
| Suites | 373 | 35 | 9.4% | 5th |
| Cantatas | 345 | 32 | 9.3% | 4th |
| Masses | 102 | 23 | 22.5% | 1st |
Among the 49 best-catalogued composers; shown when C major is one of the eight commonest keys in that composer’s keyed works. Six at most, most works first.
| Composer | Works with a key | In C major | Share | Rank of the composer’s keys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antonio Vivaldi | 548 | 96 | 17.5% | 1st |
| Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 536 | 95 | 17.7% | 1st |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | 683 | 61 | 8.9% | 4th |
| Joseph Haydn | 336 | 59 | 17.6% | 2nd |
| Ludwig van Beethoven | 147 | 25 | 17.0% | 1st |
| Franz Schubert | 124 | 22 | 17.7% | 1st |
What Wikipedia says about C major
Excerpts from the English Wikipedia articles, quoted unchanged (references, tables and images removed). Statements about the character or history of the key are Wikipedia’s, not this site’s; follow the article links for the full text and its authors.
C major
C major is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and its parallel minor is C minor.
On the piano, the C major scale can be played using only the white keys starting on C.
Compositions
Twenty of Joseph Haydn's 106 symphonies are in C major, making it his second most-used key, second to D major. Of the 134 symphonies mistakenly attributed to Haydn that H. C. Robbins Landon lists in his catalog, 33 are in C major, more than any other key. Before the invention of the valves, Haydn did not write trumpet and timpani parts in his symphonies, except those in C major. Landon writes that it wasn't "until 1774 that Haydn uses trumpets and timpani in a key other than C major... and then only sparingly." Most of Haydn's symphonies in C major are labelled "festive" and are of a primarily celebratory mood. Wilfrid Mellers believed that Mozart's Symphony No. 41, written in 'white' C major, "represented the triumph of light".
Many masses and settings of the Te Deum in the Classical era were in C major. Mozart and Haydn wrote most of their masses in C major. Gounod (in a review of Sibelius' Third Symphony) said that "only God composes in C major". Six of his own masses are written in C.
Of Franz Schubert's two symphonies in the key, the first is nicknamed the "Little C major" and the second the "Great C major".
Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" is written in C major.
The idea that musical keys can conjure up specific feelings has been discussed in some instances. This notion is further explored in a radio program called The Signature Series. American popular songwriter Bob Dylan claimed the key of C major to "be the key of strength, but also the key of regret". Sibelius's Symphony No. 7 is in C major and that key was of great importance in his previous symphonies.
Notable examples
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564
- Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846
- Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005
- Cello Suite No. 3, BWV 1009
- Joseph Haydn
- Cello Concerto No. 1 (1761–65)
- Symphony No. 7, Le Midi (1761)
- Symphony No. 60, Il distratto (1774)
- Symphony No. 82, The Bear (1786)
- String Quartet No. 32, The Bird (1781)
- String Quartet No. 62, Emperor (1797–98)
- Mass No. 10, Missa in tempore belli (1796)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- 12 Variations in C major on the French song "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman", KV 265
- Concerto for flute and harp, KV 299/297c
- Piano Concerto No. 8, KV 246 ("Lützow")
- Piano Concerto No. 13, KV 415
- Piano Concerto No. 21, KV 467
- Piano Concerto No. 25, KV 503
- Piano Sonata No. 1, KV 279
- Piano Sonata No. 7, KV 309
- Piano Sonata No. 10, KV 330
- Piano Sonata No. 16, KV 545
- String Quartet No. 19, KV 465 ("Dissonance")
- Symphony No. 16, KV 128
- Symphony No. 22, KV 162
- Symphony No. 28, KV 200
- Symphony No. 34, KV 338
- Symphony No. 36, KV 425 ("Linz")
- Symphony No. 41, KV 551 ("Jupiter")
Source: Wikipedia, “C major” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-06-18.
Relative key
In music theory, relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signatures (enharmonically equivalent), meaning that they share all of the same notes but are arranged in a different order of whole steps and half steps.
Source: Wikipedia, “Relative key” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-06-11.
Closely related keys
The five keys closest to C major share most of its notes: they are the keys on the other degrees of the scale whose chords are major or minor, and they differ from C major by at most one sharp or flat. The sixth entry is the parallel key, which starts on the same note but has a different key signature. Counts are Lieder songs in each key.
- G major Up a fifth (V, the dominant key) 1♯ · 1 step sharper on the circle 118 Lieder songs
- F major Down a fifth (IV, the subdominant key) 1♭ · 1 step flatter on the circle 130 Lieder songs
- A minor Relative minor (vi) no sharps or flats · same signature as this key 89 Lieder songs
- D minor Supertonic minor (ii) 1♭ · 1 step flatter on the circle 52 Lieder songs
- E minor Mediant minor (iii) 1♯ · 1 step sharper on the circle 58 Lieder songs
- C minor Parallel minor (same tonic) 3♭ · 3 steps flatter on the circle 44 Lieder songs
Bach’s prelude in this key
In The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Bach wrote one prelude and fugue in each of the 24 keys. For C major it is No. 1: Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846. The prelude’s time signature is 4/4; the fugue has 4 voices.
Played by Kimiko Ishizaka, a free (CC0) recording; small mono mp3, nothing loads until you press play. Hear the fugue and see all 24 keys · About the recordings
How this was counted
- Note names. Computed by a script from the step pattern of the scale with the rule “one letter name per degree”, then checked against the circle-of-fifths formula for the key signature, the pitch pattern and the chord qualities. Nothing is copied from a table.
- Lieder. The key signature is the first key signature of the melody part, read directly from the MusicXML. The corpus does not record major or minor, so the mode is estimated with the Krumhansl–Schmuckler method on the notes under the opening signature; where an automatic harmonic analysis exists, the two agree on 977 of 1,023 songs (95.5%).
- Same sound, one key. Spellings are merged by pitch: F♯ major and G♭ major, D♭ major and C♯ major, E♭ minor and D♯ minor and so on are counted together, in every dataset, as on the page Most common keys in music.
- Chord analysis. Endings, progressions and key changes come from the automatic Roman-numeral analyses (AugmentedNet v1.9.1) of 1,156 of the songs. The analyses have not been corrected by people; the ending is the last pair of different chords, and a key change is a section of at least 8 bars (4 bars where stated).
- Melody and range. The first vocal line of each song whose key signature never changes; the first and last sounding notes, named relative to the tonic of the key. The lowest and highest notes are the extremes of the vocal line.
- Other datasets. Mutopia: the first key signature of the MIDI made from the LilyPond source, or the first
\keyin the source. MusicBrainz: the editor-entered Key attribute, and keys parsed from English titles. Open Opus: keys named in work titles. AcousticBrainz: machine estimates with a key strength of 0.6 or more, totals only. - Samples. A statistics block appears only when at least 30 songs back it; the sample size is printed with every block.
Data used
- OpenScore Lieder Corpus — 1,462 art songs, mostly 19th-century and European, transcribed to MusicXML by volunteers. CC0 1.0
- The Mutopia Project — 2,129 free scores (LilyPond sources and MIDI); only counts are shown. per piece: public domain, CC BY or CC BY-SA
- MusicBrainz (core data) — The open music database; counts of works by key. CC0 1.0
- Open Opus — A catalogue of 13,014 works by 77 composers. public domain (project README)
- AcousticBrainz — Machine key estimates for commercial recordings; totals only, no titles or artists. CC0 1.0
- Wikipedia — Excerpts of the key articles, quoted unchanged. CC BY-SA 4.0
What these numbers cannot tell you
- The Lieder are 19th-century-centred European art songs transcribed by volunteers, not a sample of all music. Nothing here measures pop, rock, jazz, film music or music from other traditions.
- A count of keys in scores and catalogues is not a count of listening: it does not say how often people hear each key.
- Major or minor in the Lieder is an estimate; the key signature (the number of sharps or flats) is exact. A piece with a given signature can be in the major or the relative minor.
- The MusicBrainz key field is filled in by volunteers for the works they care about, and leans to Baroque, Classical and Romantic instrumental music. Titles that spell the key in another language (for example “C-Dur”) are not read.
- AcousticBrainz keys are machine estimates and known to favour some keys; they are shown only for rough comparison.
- Chord analyses were produced by software and not checked by people; key changes depend strongly on the length threshold.
Checks run each time this page is rebuilt (15)
- scale spelling checked: seven different letter names in order, every note agrees with the key signature (no sharps or flats)
- the scale has seven notes
- songs in C major (95) equal the merged byKey counts of lieder-keys.json
- all 1,462 songs are assigned to one of the 24 keys
- Lieder share equals keys-across-corpora.json (6.49794801641587 vs 6.5)
- spelling variants add up to the key total
- Mutopia pieces in C major (367) equal the merged key counts of mutopia-keys-meter.json
- composer birth groups do not exceed the number of songs
- songs with a chord analysis (79) do not exceed the songs in the key (95)
- ending types add up to the 73 songs with a readable ending
- progression song counts do not exceed the analysed songs
- first and last note counts add up to the 80 songs analysed
- Wikipedia excerpts contain only allowed tags and no markup residue
- title is at most 60 characters (39)
- the page’s own text (short answer, introductions and paragraphs; no Wikipedia, captions, tables or method) is at least 400 words (1123)
Data: OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0 1.0); The Mutopia Project (per-piece licences; counts only); MusicBrainz (CC0 1.0); Open Opus (public domain); AcousticBrainz (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (excerpts) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Computed for this site on 2026-10-03; the numbers are counts or shares from the datasets named above, not estimates for music in general. Licences and credits for everything used on this site are on the credits page.