Word.ws English Dictionary

theoretical key

theoretical key noun: a key signature which has eight or more sharps or seven flats. In music using twelve-tone equal temperament its pitch coincides with its enharmonic, while in most other equal temperament tunings most enharmonic equivalences between key signatures regularly go beyond simple sharps and flats.

Noun

theoretical key (plural theoretical keys)

  1. (music theory) A key signature which has eight or more sharps or seven flats. In music using twelve-tone equal temperament its pitch coincides with its enharmonic, while in most other equal temperament tunings most enharmonic equivalences between key signatures regularly go beyond simple sharps and flats.
    • G-sharp major is a theoretical key with 8 sharps; in 12-tone equal temperament it is enharmonic to A-flat major, but in most other tunings, such as 31-tone equal temperament, it is a distinct key.

Forms of theoretical key

pluraltheoretical keys

Questions about theoretical key

What does theoretical key mean?
Theoretical key means a key signature which has eight or more sharps or seven flats. In music using twelve-tone equal temperament its pitch coincides with its enharmonic, while in most other equal temperament tunings most enharmonic equivalences between key signatures regularly go beyond simple sharps and flats.
What part of speech is theoretical key?
Theoretical key is a noun.
What is the plural of theoretical key?
The plural of theoretical key is theoretical keys.

Words near theoretical key in the dictionary

  1. theoremic
  2. theoreming
  3. theorems
  4. theoretic
  5. theoretical
  6. theoretical key
  7. theoretical keys
  8. theoretical oxygen demand
  9. theoretical oxygen demands
  10. theoretical physicist
  11. theoretical physicists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: theoretical key (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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