Key signature A minor as each accidental may be notated explicitly as required, or the piece may be modal or atonal. An example is Bartók's Piano Sonata, which has no fixed key and is highly chromatic. If not bound by common practice conventions, microtones can also be notated in a key signature; which microtonal symbols are used depends on the system. The common practice period conventions are so firmly established that some musical notation programs have been unable to show nonstandard key signatures until recently. The use of a one-flat signature developed in the Medieval period, but signatures with more than one
Key signature sometimes is this change indicated with a change of key signature; if not, the passage in the second key will not have a matching key signature. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538 by Bach has no key signature, leading it to be called the "Dorian", but it is still in D minor; the Bs that occur in the piece are written with accidentals. Keys which are associated with the same key signature are called relative keys. When musical modes, such as Lydian or Dorian, are written using key signatures, they are called "transposed modes". Exceptions to common-practice-period