Dictionary of Music - Birding America

key bugle 207than between two less closely related keys (calledremote keys). The most closely related keys area Parallel keys, that is, major and minor keyshaving the same tonic (keynote), such as A majorand A minor, B-flat major and B-flat minor, etc.These also are called tonic major and tonic minor,A major being the tonic major of A minor, and Aminor the tonic minor of A major.b Relative keys, that is, major and minor keysthat have the same key signature (same number ofsharps or flats), such as C major and A minor (bothof which have no sharps or flats), G major and Eminor (both having one sharp), etc. These arereferred to as relative major and relative minor, Cmajor being the relative major of A minor, and Aminor the relative minor of C major.c Related keys, that is, major and minor keysthat differ from one another by only one sharp or flatin the key signature, such as C major (no sharps orflats) and G major (one sharp), E minor (one sharp),F major (one flat), and D minor (one flat).Because two keys related to one another in theways described share a high proportion of the samechords (which may, however, have a different harmonicfunction), it is fairly easy to modulate bymeans of a shared chord (called pivot chord) fromone key to another. Thus a piece in the key of Cmajor might modulate to G major via the chordG–B–D, which is both the dominant triad in C majorand the tonic triad in G major.keyboard A series of levers arranged in a row,whereby the player makes a keyboard instrument(piano, organ, harpsichord, clavichord, etc.) sound.The piano keyboard has eighty-eight keys and arange of seven and one-quarter octaves, with sevenwhite keys and five black keys in each octave (seethe accompanying illustration). The reason for thetwo kinds of key is that the earliest keyboards werediatonic (corresponding to the white keys), the chromatickeys (black keys) being added only later.The earliest keyboards were built for organs.Organ keyboards are of two kinds, manuals, playedwith the hands, and pedal keyboards (or pedalboards),played with the feet. From a fairly earlytime organs were provided with two manuals, to permitrapid changes in loudness or tone color, and laterthey were sometimes given as many as six or seven.(Today even large organs rarely have more than fourfig. 138 p/u from p. 212manuals.) In the fourteenth century keyboards beganto be used for stringed instruments—the harpsichordand later the clavichord. The harpsichord, too, wasoften given two manuals, but the piano, dating fromthe eighteenth century, has only been provided withmore than one for special purposes. One type had asecond keyboard that played an octave higher thanthe regular one; another had a second keyboard playingstrings tuned a quarter tone (half of a half tone)higher than the other.keyboard instruments Musical instruments thatare sounded by means of a keyboard, mainly theorgan, piano, clavichord, and harpsichord (includingsuch varieties of harpsichord as the spinet and virginal).Although some other instruments, such as theaccordion and celesta, have a similar keyboard, theyare not generally considered part of the group.keyboard music Music written for a keyboardinstrument. The term is used most often for musicwritten before about 1770, which could be played onany of the current keyboard instruments (organ,harpsichord, or clavichord) and was not necessarilyintended for any one instrument in particular.key bugle Also, keyed bugle. A brass instrumentinvented in the early nineteenth century (patented in1810 in Dublin, Ireland) that was the first brassinstrument on which a full chromatic scale could beplayed. Before its invention, brass instruments wereconfined to a single fundamental pitch and its harmonics,which could be varied only with the additionof cumbersome crooks (see FRENCH HORN). Thekey bugle had five keys covering holes in the body