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The fundamental fact or idea; that which gives the key; as, the keynote of a policy or a sermon.

(a) The keynote of the normal or "natural" scale, which has neither flats nor sharps in its signature; also, the third note of the relative minor scale of the same (b) C after the clef is the mark of common time, in which each measure is a semibreve (four fourths or crotchets); for alla breve time it is written (c) The…

ement to which its modulations are referred, and with which it generally begins and ends; keynote. Both warbling of one song, both in one key. Shak.

See Keynote.

The third above the keynote; -- so called because it divides the interval between the tonic and dominant into two thirds.

w key; a shifting of the tonality of a piece, so that the harmonies all center upon a new keynote or tonic; the art of transition out of the original key into one nearly related, and so on, it may be, by successive changes, into a key quite remote. There are also sudden and unprepared modulations.

tave, fifth, and fourth; a perfect consonance; a common chord in its original position of keynote, third, fifth, and octave. -- Perfect number (Arith.), a number equal to the sum of all its divisors; as, 28, whose aliquot parts, or divisors, are 14, 7, 4, 2,

To give a pitch to, as a tune; to start by fixing the keynote; as, to set a psalm. Fielding.

The sixth tone of the scale; the under mediant, or third below the keynote; the superdominant.

The note next above the keynote; the second of the scale. Busby.

hich it is written, or through the family relationship of all its tones and chords to the keynote, or tonic, of the whole. The predominance of the tonic as the link which connects all the tones of a piece, we may, with Fétis, term the principle of tonality. Helmholtz.