{"id":254,"date":"2020-02-04T06:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-16T12:13:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T20:13:12","slug":"circle-of-fifths-useless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/circle-of-fifths-useless\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Circle of 5ths Useless?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Once you start learning and studying music a little bit you’re bound to come across the Circle of 5ths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sounds so official and important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE CIRCLE OF 5THS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost like some ancient secret order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it can be daunting or confusing if you don’t know what it is — or WHY it exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m here to tell you what it is … BUT<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It will be up to YOU to decide whether you think it’s something that can be useful for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know many pianists who never use the Circle of 5ths. For them, it’s not super helpful or applicable to their practice or playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here we go…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically the Circle of 5ths is designed to help you know and learn all the scales and key signatures. You can learn every major scale and its key signature — and you can learn all the relative minor scales<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Circle is great at showing patterns which helps make it easier to learn and remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does it do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me show you…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Circle of 5ths<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, this can be a lot to take in, so we’ll take it slowly. Start at the top – C major. Everybody loves C major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing to notice is that if you move around the circle in a clockwise direction (to the right), everything moves in an interval of a 5th. C to G is a 5th. G to D is a 5th and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s why it’s called the Circle of 5ths!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next thing to notice is the keys on the INSIDE of the circle. Those are the relative minor keys for the major scales. For example, A minor is the relative minor of C major (they have the same key signature). E minor is the relative minor of G and so on. These relative minors also move around in intervals of 5ths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ok back to C major. You know that C major has no sharps or flats<\/a>. So move one position around to G major (up a 5th remember) and you’ll see that G major has ONE sharp (F#). Keep moving to the next key (D major) and you’ll see that it has 2 sharps. The next key (A major) has 3 sharps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see the pattern here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a big use for the Circle of 5ths is to help you learn which key signatures have sharps and flats, and how many sharps or flats they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that’s not all…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Circle of 5ths can also show you the ORDER of the sharps and flats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with the order of sharps<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Look at the Circle again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

G major has one sharp — F#.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next key around is D major. It has 2 sharps — F# and C#.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now look at the circle and find F. Do you see what’s just to the right of it? C!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let’s move to the next key after D. That’s A major. Can you guess what sharps A major has?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

F#, C# and …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G#.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The order of the sharps in key signatures is shown by the Circle of 5ths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

F-C-G-D-A-E<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pretty cool hey?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can follow this pattern all the way around to the bottom of the circle. That’s where things get messy and confusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to think of the bottom of the Circle as the Twilight Zone — because there are keys that can be either sharps or flats — depending on how you want to think of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you COULD keep going around clockwise — but what I (and most people) like to do is go back to the top and re-start — this time going counter-clockwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that’s what we’re going to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next: the order of flats<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Back at top with C, let’s see the Circle one more time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Instead of going right, we are going to go left. You may realize that the intervals have changed now. C to F is not a 5th, it’s a 4th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the reason why this can also be called the Circle of 4ths. But here’s something cool…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While C to F is a 4th, F to C is a 5th. So you can think of it as going UP a 4th, or DOWN a 5th. That’s a really neat thing about music intervals. 4ths and 5ths are mirror-images of each other!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So moving left from C lands you on F. And now you’re moving to the side of the Circle where the keys have FLATS instead of sharps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the patterns are very similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first key to the left of C (F major) has ONE flat, just like the first key to the right of C (G major) has one sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving another key to the left and you land on Bb major, which has TWO flats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know where this is going…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And just like you can use the Circle to learn the order of sharps, you can do the same thing to learn the order of flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first flat is on a B (Bb in the key of F). So find B on the Circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving counter-clockwise will tell you the order of flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B-E-A-D-G-C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cool story, now what?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Well … not much honestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the Circle of 5ths (or 4ths).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally I have found it really useful to learn the major and minor keys and their key signatures. I find it helps to learn the Circle of 5ths while you\u2019re sitting at the piano, so you can visualize things as you learn them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about you? Now that you know how the Circle is built and how to read it, do you think it’s helpful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or is the Circle of 5ths useless?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comment to let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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