Key profile · minor key
C Minor: Scale, Key Signature and Chords
C minor has three flats (B♭, E♭, A♭). Scale: C D E♭ F G A♭ B♭. Chords, staff and sound, and how often real songs use it: 44 of 1,462 art songs, 15th of 24 keys.
Short answer
C minor has three flats (B♭, E♭, A♭). Its scale is C – D – E♭ – F – G – A♭ – B♭. Its relative major, E♭ major, uses the same key signature; its parallel major, C major, starts on the same note. In the 1,462 art songs of the OpenScore Lieder corpus, 44 are in C minor (3.0% of the corpus), which makes it the 15th most common of the 24 keys.
- C1
- D2
- E♭3
- F4
- G5
- A♭6
- B♭7
- 3♭key signature: B♭, E♭, A♭
- 44of 1,462 Lieder songs are in C minor (15th of 24 keys)
- 62of 1,974 Mutopia scores (12th 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 minor scale, its notes and its chords
The natural minor scale is built from the steps whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. In C minor the two half steps fall between the 2nd and 3rd degrees (D and E♭) and between the 5th and 6th degrees (G and A♭); 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 (Cm) | C – E♭ – G | Cm7 (C – E♭ – G – B♭) |
| 2 | D | Supertonic | ii° (Ddim) | D – F – A♭ | Dm7♭5 (D – F – A♭ – C) |
| 3 | E♭ | Mediant | III (E♭) | E♭ – G – B♭ | E♭maj7 (E♭ – G – B♭ – D) |
| 4 | F | Subdominant | iv (Fm) | F – A♭ – C | Fm7 (F – A♭ – C – E♭) |
| 5 | G | Dominant | v (Gm) | G – B♭ – D | Gm7 (G – B♭ – D – F) |
| 6 | A♭ | Submediant | VI (A♭) | A♭ – C – E♭ | A♭maj7 (A♭ – C – E♭ – G) |
| 7 | B♭ | Subtonic | VII (B♭) | B♭ – D – F | B♭7 (B♭ – D – F – A♭) |
The raised notes are accidentals: they are written next to the notes and are not part of the key signature.
| Form | Notes | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Natural minor | C – D – E♭ – F – G – A♭ – B♭ | the key signature only |
| Harmonic minor | C – D – E♭ – F – G – A♭ – B | 7th raised: B♭ becomes B |
| Melodic minor, going up | C – D – E♭ – F – G – A – B | 6th and 7th raised: A♭ → A and B♭ → B |
| Melodic minor, going down | C – B♭ – A♭ – G – F – E♭ – D – C | same notes as natural minor |
With the raised 7th of the harmonic form, two chords change. The chord on the 5th degree becomes major: V = G major (G – B – D). The chord on the 7th degree becomes diminished: vii° = B diminished (B – D – F). The seventh chords change with them: on the 5th degree it is G7, a dominant seventh chord (G – B – D – F), and on the raised 7th degree it is Bdim7, a diminished seventh chord (B – D – F – A♭). Composers use the major V in minor much more often than the minor v of the pure scale, because the raised 7th gives a leading tone, B, a half step below the tonic.
The key signature of C minor
The key signature of C minor is three flats: B♭, E♭ and A♭. Sharps are added to a signature in the order F, C, G, D, A, E, B and flats in the order B, E, A, D, G, C, F; C minor takes the first three flats. The same signature belongs to E♭ major, 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 minor on the staff, and how it sounds
The staves show the three forms of the scale one octave from C. The buttons play the scale, the tonic chord (Cm) and the cadence i–iv–V–i, which in this key is Cm → Fm → G → Cm. 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 D E♭ F G A♭ B C
C D E♭ F G A B C
C B♭ A♭ G F E♭ D C
Tonic chord: Cm = C – E♭ – G. Cadence i–iv–V–i: Cm (C – E♭ – G) → Fm (F – A♭ – C) → G (G – B – D) → Cm.
musictheoryprint.com/keys/c-minor/ — C minor, three flats
C minor 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. 44 of them are in C minor: 3.0% of the corpus and 9.6% of the 456 songs estimated to be minor, which makes it the 15th most common of the 24 keys by song count. Of the 171 songs whose key signature is three flats, 44 were estimated to be in C minor and 127 in E♭ major.
Free scores. The Mutopia Project has 1,974 scores with a readable key; 62 are in C minor (3.1%, 12th of 24 keys). Most of them are for piano (35), organ (10) and harpsichord / clavichord (9), and the styles listed in the library are mainly baroque (24), classical (23) and romantic (13).
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 | 44 | 3.0% | 15th |
| Mutopia Project | free scores; key from MIDI or LilyPond source | 62 | 3.1% | 12th |
| MusicBrainz, Key attribute | catalogued works; key entered by editors | 614 | 4.5% | 11th |
| MusicBrainz, key in title | catalogued works; key read from the English title | 306 | 5.7% | 9th |
| Open Opus | works by 77 composers; key read from the work title | 189 | 5.3% | 10th |
| AcousticBrainz | recordings; machine-estimated key (strength 0.6 or more) | 2,386 | 3.8% | 12th |
The corpus has no composition dates, so songs are grouped by the composer’s birth year. The group where C minor takes the largest share is born 1770–1809 (4.0%).
| Composer group | Songs in the corpus | In C minor | Share of the group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Composers born before 1770 | 64 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Born 1770–1809 | 224 | 9 | 4.0% |
| Born 1810–1839 | 509 | 17 | 3.3% |
| Born 1840–1869 | 499 | 12 | 2.4% |
| Born 1870 or later | 159 | 6 | 3.8% |
Songs written in C minor
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 minor
- Du sprichst, dass ich mich täuschte Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)from 9 Lieder und Gesänge, Op.324/4 · 43 bars · voice E♭4–A♭5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 5th (G)
- Bootgesang, D.835 Franz Schubert (1797–1828)from Op.524/4 · 36 bars · voice G3–G4 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the a chromatic note (E)
- Les lavandières Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (1847–1903)from 20 Mélodies6/8 · 126 bars · voice G4–E♭5 · melody begins on the 1st (C), ends on the 1st (C)
- Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben Robert Schumann (1810–1856)from Frauenliebe und Leben3/8 · 87 bars · voice C4–F5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 1st (C)
- Volkslied Robert Franz (1815–1892)from 6 Gesänge, Op.142/4 · 25 bars · voice C4–E♭5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 1st (C)
- Die Geister haben's vernommen Johanna Kinkel (1810–1858)from 6 Lieder, Op. 63/4 · 37 bars · voice D4–F5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the a chromatic note (E)
- Ballade à la lune Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944)4/4 · 75 bars · voice F4–G5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 1st (C)
- Lied Clara Mathilda Faisst (1872–1948)from 5 Lieder, Op.43/4 · 35 bars · voice B3–D♭5 · melody begins on the 5th (G), ends on the 5th (G)
Chosen from 44 songs in C minor 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 minor do
The 44 songs in C minor 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 34 of them (it exists for 1,156 of the 1,462 songs in the whole corpus).
57.7% of the 26 songs in C minor 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 minor is level with the corpus average. 92.3% 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.
In 35% of these 31 songs the analysis finds a section of at least 8 bars in some other key; with a 4-bar threshold the figure is 68%. 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 minor runs from C4 up to F5 (44 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 minor in catalogues and recordings
MusicBrainz. Editors have entered a key for 13,669 catalogued works (parts and arrangements excluded); 614 of them are in C minor, 4.5% of those works and 11th of 24 keys. Reading the key from the English work title instead (“… in C minor”) finds 306 of 5,340 titles in C minor (9th of 24).
Open Opus. 189 of the 3,587 Open Opus work titles that name a key are in C minor (10th of 24 keys). Of the works that the editors flagged as popular, 10 are in C minor; of the works they recommend, 23. By genre, C minor is among the eight commonest keys for keyboard (83 of 1,349 keyboard works).
Recordings. Software that estimates the key of commercial recordings (AcousticBrainz, high-confidence estimates only) puts 2,386 of 63,124 recordings in C minor (12th 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 minor 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 minor | Share | Rank in the type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Songs | 2,241 | 75 | 3.3% | 13th |
| Concertos | 2,051 | 78 | 3.8% | 12th |
| Sonatas | 1,693 | 95 | 5.6% | 10th |
| Symphonies | 1,098 | 63 | 5.7% | 8th |
| Quartets | 578 | 31 | 5.4% | 11th |
| Suites | 373 | 19 | 5.1% | 10th |
| Cantatas | 345 | 20 | 5.8% | 8th |
| Masses | 102 | 12 | 11.8% | 3rd |
Among the 49 best-catalogued composers; shown when C minor 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 minor | Share | Rank of the composer’s keys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 536 | 22 | 4.1% | 8th |
| Felix Mendelssohn | 80 | 9 | 11.2% | 2nd |
| Anton Bruckner | 62 | 8 | 12.9% | 2nd |
| Franz Schubert | 124 | 8 | 6.5% | 4th |
| Ludwig van Beethoven | 147 | 7 | 4.8% | 7th |
| Luigi Boccherini | 126 | 7 | 5.6% | 8th |
What Wikipedia says about C minor
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 minor
C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E♭, F, G, A♭, and B♭. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E♭ major and its parallel major is C major.
Notable compositions
- Charles-Valentin Alkan
- Prelude Op. 31, No. 16 (Assez lentement)
- Symphony for Solo Piano, 1st movement: Allegro
- Trois grandes études, Op. 76, No. 3 "Mouvement semblable et perpetuel"
- Johannes Sebastian Bach
- Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582
- Lute Suite in C minor, BWV 997
- Cello Suite No. 5, BWV 1011
- The Musical Offering, BWV 1079
- Partita No. 2, BWV 826
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Piano Sonata No. 5
- Piano Sonata No. 8 (Pathétique)
- Piano Concerto No. 3
- Coriolan Overture
- Symphony No. 5
- Choral Fantasy
- Piano Sonata No. 32
- Johannes Brahms
- Symphony No. 1
- String Quartet Op. 51/1
- Piano Trio No. 3
- Piano Quartet No. 3
- Anton Bruckner
- Symphony No. 1
- Symphony No. 2
- Symphony No. 8
- Frédéric Chopin
- Rondo Op. 1
- Piano Sonata No. 1
- Étude Op. 10, No. 12 (Revolutionary)
- Étude Op. 25, No. 12 (Ocean)
- Prélude Op. 28, No. 20 "Funeral March"
- Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1
- Nocturne in C minor, Op. posth. (Chopin)
- Mazurka Op. 56, No. 3
- Gabriel Fauré
- Élégie, Op. 24
- Joseph Haydn
- Piano Sonata Hob. XVI/20
- Franz Liszt
- Transcendental Étude No. 8 "Wilde Jagd"
- Gustav Mahler
- Symphony No. 2 "Auferstehung"
- Felix Mendelssohn
- Piano Trio in C minor, MWV Q3
- Symphony No. 1
- Organ Sonata, Op. 65, No. 2
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Great Mass in C minor, K. 427 (417a)
- Piano Concerto No. 24, K. 491)
- Maurerische Trauermusik K. 477 (479a)
- Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte, K. 517
- Adagio and Fugue in C minor. K. 546
- Wind Serenade in C minor. K. 388 (384a)
- Fantasy in C minor for violin and piano, K. 396 (385f)
- Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457
- Fantasy in C minor, K. 475
- Kleiner Trauermarsch, K. 453a
- Sergei Prokofiev
- Symphony No. 3, Op. 44
- Sergei Rachmaninoff
- Piano Concerto No. 2
- Camille Saint-Saëns
- Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)
- Dmitri Shostakovich
- String Quartet No. 8
- Symphony No. 4
- Symphony No. 8
- Franz Schubert
- Symphony No. 4, D. 417
- Piano Sonata No. 19, D. 958
- Impromptu No. 1, D. 899
Source: Wikipedia, “C minor” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-06-18.
Parallel key
In music theory, a major scale and a minor scale that have the same starting note (tonic) are called parallel keys and are said to be in a parallel relationship.
Source: Wikipedia, “Parallel key” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-02-02.
Closely related keys
The five keys closest to C minor 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 minor 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.
- E♭ major Relative major (III) 3♭ · same signature as this key 127 Lieder songs
- F minor Down a fifth (iv, the subdominant key) 4♭ · 1 step flatter on the circle 42 Lieder songs
- G minor Up a fifth (v, the minor dominant key) 2♭ · 1 step sharper on the circle 63 Lieder songs
- A♭ major Submediant major (VI) 4♭ · 1 step flatter on the circle 86 Lieder songs
- B♭ major Subtonic major (VII) 2♭ · 1 step sharper on the circle 70 Lieder songs
- C major Parallel major (same tonic) no sharps or flats · 3 steps sharper on the circle 95 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 minor it is No. 2: Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 847. The prelude’s time signature is 4/4; the fugue has 3 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 (14)
- scale spelling checked: seven different letter names in order, every note agrees with the key signature (three flats)
- the scale has seven notes
- songs in C minor (44) 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 (3.009575923392613 vs 3.01)
- spelling variants add up to the key total
- Mutopia pieces in C minor (62) 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 (34) do not exceed the songs in the key (44)
- ending types add up to the 26 songs with a readable ending
- first and last note counts add up to the 32 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 (1256)
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.