Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 in D major, ‘The Clock’, is in a major key and uses mainly diatonic chords: A dominant seventh is used at the end of the phrase before the first time bar.

When we say tonality, we’re talking the key centres of a piece. Think of Beethoven’s love of dark and brooding C minor, or the joy of a Bach concerto in bright and brassy D major.. With a bit of ...

At first glance, it doesn’t seem like a very important one — it’s neither the most nor the least popular, at a slight 2.5%. It gets more interesting though, when you look at its relatives.

Most of the time, when all else is held constant, music in a major key is judged as happy while minor key music is heard as sad. I say most of the time because it’s not true across the board.