D major

D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F#, G, A, B, C# and D. Its key signature consists of two sharps.

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Its relative minor is B minor, and its parallel minor is D minor.

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Many violin concertos are in D major (e.g., those by Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), since D major is a suitable key for writing violin music. It is also appropriate for guitar music, with drop D tuning making two Ds available as open strings. Since Domenico Scarlatti often imitated the mannerisms of the guitar in his keyboard sonatas, it is not a coincidence that more than 70 of his 555 sonatas are in D major, more than any other key.

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For some beginning wind instrument students, however, D major is not a very suitable key, for example, D major music transposes to E major on B-flat wind instruments, and beginning methods generally tend to avoid keys with more than three sharps.

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Even so, the clarinet in B-flat is still often used for music in D major, and is perhaps the sharpest key that is practical for the instrument. There are composers, however, who in writing a piece in D minor with B-flat clarinets, will have them change to clarinets in A if the music switches to D major.

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23 of Joseph Haydn's 104 Symphonies are in D major, making it the most often used main key in Haydn's Symphonies. The vast majority of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's unnumbered symphonies are in D major.

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Alexander Scriabin considered D major to be golden in color, and in a discussion with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov gave an example from one of his own operas where a character sang in D major about gold.

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Major scale: In music theory, the major scale (or major mode) is one of the diatonic scales. It is often considered to be made up of eight notes (seven plus the octave), divided into two groups of four, the tetrachords. The pattern of steps in each tetrachord is, in ascending order:...

Key signature: :For use in cryptography see Key signature (cryptography)...

Relative minor: redirect Relative key...

D major related Images and Photos (experimental)

Major (front)	Major League	Major Attitude	Major Grey II
Major League 2 (DVD)	Major Payne DVD (Widescreen)	Major-General Woof	Sergeant-Major
Ursa Major & Minor	Major League 2/Major League 3 (DVD) (DBFE) (Multi-Title)	Major General George A. Custer	Major Dundee 1965