Circle of fifths how does it work

At the top of the circle we begin on the note C. As you go clockwise around the circle, the notes move in perfect 5ths. Next, a perfect fifth above D is A, and so on. Clockwise, the circle moves through all 12 notes of the musical alphabet going in 5ths finally returning to C. The same pitch can have multiple spellings. These are called enharmonic notes. If you are confused about this, read over the musical alphabet lesson. You may notice I call it a circle of 5ths and 4ths.

Fourths are another musical interval. If you go counter-clockwise on the circle you will see the notes go in ascending perfect fourths. From C, a perfect fourth above is F. The notes go in 4ths all the way around the circle when moving counter-clockwise. It will be quite useful for you to memorize the sequence of note names in both fifths and fourths. For starters, bassists play lots of fifths. Knowing the fifth above any note will come in handy.

Looking at the circle:. Even though keys like C Major technically have an enharmonic equivalent, nobody would ever write a song in B Major, because the accidentals would get really crazy, really fast!

Because key signatures can get a little tricky to remember, the circle of fifths is a great tool! Use the circle of fifths to recall how many sharps or flats each key signature has, and to understand which major and minor keys are relative or share the same key signature.

For example: C Major and A Minor. The circle of fifths is regularly used for strong bass line movement, which in turn leads to some great chord progressions! At first glance, it might not seem like this progression is following the circle of fifths because not every interval is an ascending 5th, but when you pick out the notes you will see: C , G , D , A , E , and B.

Add some right hand notation, and you have a nice little melody using the circle of fifths as your structure! Using the circle of fifths makes modulating from one key to another much easier! The circle of fifths is a great tool for showing you which keys share chords and are best for modulation purposes. With the massive amounts of information that musicians need to memorize on a regular basis, we can tell you that the circle of fifths will make your life a lot easier. Head on over to Musicnotes to start using your circle of fifths knowledge on some of your favorite songs.

Happy circling! Username or Email Address. This half of your circle expands your chord choices in creating progressions. If you stick to this side of the circle you're guaranteed to have a nice, consonant chord progression for your song and can easily create cadences and even write harmony. Of course you can use others but it requires some study and skill to do it effectively. Remember how I mentioned harmonic function above? Musically, you can see and hear that the dominant chord V is closer to the tonic that the supertonic chord ii , even though if you look at the musical staff you'd think otherwise.

This is another example of how useful the Circle of Fifths is, especially once explained. This tells us that an authentic cadence like I - ii - V - I feels more resolved has more resolution than a plagal cadence like I - IV - I. The reason for this is that, even though the V chord and IV chord are both "one step" away from the tonic physically on the circle, the IV chord is the furthest away if you consider the distance going clockwise around the circle.

Interesting stuff. Whoever created this diagram is a genius. Every major key has a relative minor key. What this means is that both keys use the exact same notes, including any accidentals sharps or flats. The difference is they have a different tonic and the distance relationship between the notes is changed a bit.

Since they are the same notes though, this distance won't impede you from using the relative key. Pro-Tip: One of my favorite ways to write a bridge to a song is to use the relative minor or major key. It will sound familiar due to the same notes being used but give you the opposite mood of the song. It's a nice juxtaposition that you can use as a surprise that leads right back into a chorus with the right lyrics.

In your mind, all you have to do to find the relative minor of a major key is to move 90 degrees to the right or 3 steps clockwise and you've found it. To move from a minor key to the relative major is the opposite. Move 90 degrees counter-clockwise or 3 steps left and you're done. If you have a Circle labeled like ours, then you can find the relative minor key on the inside of the circle, where C-Major's relative minor is A-Minor, G-Major's relative minor is E-minor, and so forth:.

There is one snag to this method that solves itself as you work with the Circle of 5ths. The naming convention for major keys will usually use a flat accidental, such as Eb to be read as E-flat , except for F F-sharp.

Minor keys largely use sharp accidentals to name the keys except for Bb. The reason has to do with the count of semitones when constructing the chords.

So for instance, D-flat major key may have Db as it's root, but the minor key C-sharp major does as well. Because C and Db are the exact same note, just named differently. Once you become more familiar with the 12 major keys and 12 minor keys you'll know which name to use and thus which key signature you're using. If you know the melody of a song and just need to plink out the chords on a piano or strum them on a guitar so your group of non-musician friends can sing along, you can transpose a song quickly if needed, all in your head.

A common use for transposition is when a song is a bit out of range for a vocalist. It's very similar to modulation, to the point where people get confused and used the words interchangeably. All that you need to do is find the tonic of the key you want to use usually one or two steps above or below the current key and you can snag the chords right off of the circle.

This is just like with our chord progressions example above. You memorize this quickly after doing it a few times. But there's nothing wrong with having the circle printed and folded up in your pocket either.

It's a crazy task to try to memorize which of these major or minor keys has what number of flats or sharps and on which notes! The Circle of Fifths helps us with this task. Starting at C-Major or 12 o'clock on the watch face of the circle , which is natural with no accidentals, every step you move clockwise adds one sharp to its key signature. This continues for seven steps until you're back to no sharps.

Using the same method but moving counter-clockwise will add a flat for each step. So starting with the natural C-Major, one step brings us to F-Major with one flat. Another step takes us to B-flat Major with two flats. This continues to seven until you're back to keys with no flats. This works with the major keys on the outside of the Circle and their minor keys in the inside of the circle, with the understanding that you always start at "12 o'clock.

Although we've provided an easy to read chart at the bottom of the poster, as seen below, you can memorize the pattern of how many sharps and flats each key has and the order of their appearance on the staff. The first clue is that the order of accidentals cycles around the Circle clockwise for sharps or counter-clockwise for flats.

They both follow this pattern, which is easy to memorize thanks to the word "bead" being in there:. That is the exact order of the addition of flats. Run it backwards and you have the order of sharps! That's useful if you've got time to count your way around the Circle, but here's another shortcut to save you time. If you're transcribing or someone asks you not only the number of accidentals but what they are for a particular key, you can use this trick For sharps, all you have to do is take the tonic of the key and subtract a semitone a half-step.

This leaves you with the last note in the key that has a sharp. Here's an example:. Now we cycle through the Circle starting at F.

There's also a trick for flats! Take the tonic of the key and jump backwards a fifth on the Circle by moving counter-clockwise one step. This again will be the last note in the key that has a flat. Here's the example so this makes sense:. Flats: If we need to formulate the key signature for D-flat Major, we start with Db. We move backwards a fifth to Gb. These are our five flats.

These kind of tricks are unbelievably helpful, and eventually you'll find that you begin to memorize them and no longer need the shortcuts. A mnemonic device is a tool to help you commit information to memory. There are a handful for the circle to help you remember the order of the notes.

In these cases, we create a phrase that tells a story full of imagery and the first letter of each word represents the notes moving either direction around the wheel, depending on if you're focused on sharps clockwise or flats counter-clockwise.

As you can see, there's as many of these mnemonic devices as you can imagine, including dirty ones if that's what helps you remember. You can pick one from above or come up with your own.