Determine the key of a song by its chords

The chords in a song of a particular key are predominantly members of the key’s scale. I imagine you could get a good approximation statistically (if there is enough data) by comparing the predominant accidentals in the chords listed to the key signatures of the keys.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

Of course, a song in any key can/will have accidentals not in the keys scale, so it would likely be a statistical approximation. But over several bars, if you add up the accidentals and filter out all but the ones that occur most often, you may be able to match to a key signature.

Addendum: as Jonas w correctly points out, you may be able to get the signature, but you won’t likely be able to determine if it is a major or minor key.

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