- published: 23 Mar 2015
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Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes. It probably developed from the table made with raised sides for trou madame, which was also played with ivory balls and continued to be popular into the later nineteenth century. A bagatelle variant using fixed metal pins, billard Japonais, eventually led to the development of pinball and pachinko. Bagatelle is also laterally related to miniature golf.
Table games involving sticks and balls date back to at least the 15th century, and evolved from efforts to bring outdoor games like ground billiards, croquet, shuffleboard and bowling, inside for play during inclement weather. While some games took the wickets and mallets of croquet and ground billiards and turned them into the pockets and cues of modern billiards, some tables became smaller and had the holes placed in strategic areas in the bed of the table.
F major (or the key of F) is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B♭, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat (see below: Scales and keys). It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years.[citation needed]
Its relative minor is D minor and its parallel minor is F minor.
F major key is the home key of the English horn, the basset horn, the horn in F, the trumpet in F and the bass Wagner tuba. Thus, music in F major for these instruments is written in C major key. Most of these sound a perfect fifth lower than written, with the exception of the trumpet in F which sounds a fourth higher. (The basset horn also often sounds an octave and a fifth lower.)
Of the six Overtures Francesco Maria Veracini wrote for Prince Friedrich Augustus in Dresden, most are in either F major or B-flat major because of the limitations of the winds in the Prince's orchestra.
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces. It is also used in some police forces such as the New York State Police, New Jersey State Police and several others.
When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. It is considered the most junior of the field ranks. In some militaries, notably France, the rank is referred to as commandant, while in others it is known as captain-major. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures.
When used in hyphenated or combined fashion, the term can also imply seniority at other levels of rank, including general-major or major general, denoting a mid-level general officer, and sergeant major, denoting the most senior NCO of a military unit.
It can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band such as in pipe-major or drum-major.