In this short film Howard Goodall explains the origin of the 12-tone tuning system that has become the foundation of classical and popular western music. Johann Sebastian Bach’s 'The Well ...

We have to mention C major as an outlier. It does not contain any sharps or flats, hence any piece of music in C major will not have a key signature, as it is not required. On a practical level ...

This is used when writing a melody. Each key signature has two possible keys. The major key and the minor key, which will begin on a different note. This is known as the relative minor.

We won't get too technical here, but suffice to say that the sharps and flats appear in a specific order, and sharps and flats are never combined in the same key signature. We have to mention C major ...