C major

[see may-jer]

noun

1. Music.,  the key that has C as the tonic or first note of its scale and is represented by a key signature having no sharps or flats.

Example Sentences

Indeed, “11,000 Strings” begins with a C major chord; shortly thereafter, a harpist half-prepares to leap into Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers.”

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“Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major,” he sighed, chuckling at the irony of how being the best bluegrass fiddler brought him back to the classical violin he’d quit.

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The keys that are most distant from C major, with six sharps or six flats, are on the opposite side of the circle.

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To humans, consonant music generally sounds pleasant and smooth—think a C major chord—whereas dissonance tends to sound jarring and uncomfortable, such as the score from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

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The relentless C major hammering of its finale evoked not triumph or freedom, Gielen wrote, but “affirmation without contradiction, and with it the trampling of any opposition, imperial terror.”

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