MINOR. D G C F BIZ E17.
The minor keys take the same signature with the major keys a third above them.
When a new key is introduced in the middle of a piece of music, the signature of the former key must be contradicted, and that of the new one appended. Thus a transition . 1.1 from the key of D major to that of D minor is indicated thus: [ from B 4— major to B minor: the sharps which are to continue being, in this _ ..)last case, for distinctness' sake, appended in addition to the contradiction of those that are to be discarded. A transition to another key, which is not to continue for any length of time, is seldom indicated by a change of signature; but the sharp, flat, or natural sign is appended to any note as required, that sign affecting all the following notes of the same letter in the measure in which it occurs, unless contradicted. A sharp, flat, or
natural thus introduced is called an accidental. Two accidentals are required in the ascending scale of every minor key, to sharpen the sixth and seventh of the tonic.
Besides the signature of the key, a signature of time precedes every musical compo sition. It consists of two figures placed over one another as Vraction, the denominator 2, 4, 8, or 16 standing for minims, crotchets, quavers, or semiquavers (i.e., halves, fourths, etc., of a semibreve), while the numerator points out how many of these fractional parts of a semibreve are contained in each measure. Thus, --= - indicates that there are two crotchets, and -- three quavers in the measure. When there are four crotchets (or 8 e, semibreve) in the measure, it is usual to write =E= instead of • 4