# the CIRCLE of 5ths



## GTmaker (Apr 24, 2006)

He guys...
seen the charts, It seem obvious how the key signatures progress thru the Circle of 5ths.

How do you use this knowledge and apply it to music theory.?

thanks in advance.


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2009)

Hopefully Mooh or someone who teaches can give you more useful information than this. I've only ever used it to tell me how many sharps or flat are in a key signature and which notes are sharp/flat.

These videos describe it.

Major:

[youtube]xkc_9Ql1HLY[/youtube] 

Minor:

[youtube]22s7Q6n87tU[/youtube]

Curious to see if the circle of fifths is useful for anything else.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

These explain it well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths (Scroll down for layman's explanation.)

http://ogdenian.com/circle.htm

http://circleoffifths.com/

http://randscullard.com/CircleOfFifths/

http://randscullard.com/CircleOfFifths/UserGuide.htm has a nice explanation also.

Paraphrased from the Oxford dictionary: The circle of fifths shows the relative "closeness" and "distance" from key to key...C major and F# major have no common triads. [But, C and G share many.]

Peace, Mooh.


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

The C of 5ths rears its head in a lot of little ways. Keep one near you when you're practicing and stuff will jump out. For example, take a look at the G on it. Notice that C and D are on either side of it. How many songs have you played that were built G, C, and D? Probably quite a few.


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## seanmj (May 9, 2009)

Understanding the circle of 5ths is really the doorway to understanding most things about music... intervals, scales, chord construction... etc. Once you have a firm grasp of it... many other things fall into place.

Sean Meredith-Jones
http://www.seanmeredithjones.com


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Budding songwriters benefit greatly from the circle of 5ths, for the key information, order/relationship between chord roots, transposition and modulation possibilities, relative minors and majors, and if they're really visual, the pictorial memory assistance of the diagram itself. It's fun to use to keep the mind ahead of the hands for practicing various cadences (I like to do short counterpoint exercises with a different cadence with each ending, though more so on piano), and keeping track of modulations while improvising.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

kat_ said:


> The C of 5ths rears its head in a lot of little ways. Keep one near you when you're practicing and stuff will jump out. For example, take a look at the G on it. Notice that C and D are on either side of it. How many songs have you played that were built G, C, and D? Probably quite a few.


So, if you wanted to throw a 4th chord in there, what would it be? I am thinking the 7th or 9th, how do I figure that out?


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Jim DaddyO said:


> So, if you wanted to throw a 4th chord in there, what would it be? I am thinking the 7th or 9th, how do I figure that out?


Assuming the key of C major, looking around the circle you find: F (IV major), C (I major), G (V major), D (II minor), A (VI minor, relative minor), E (III minor), B (7, diminished)...ie, a chord for each note of the scale. You may add 7ths, 9ths or whatever to taste.

If the key is G major to use your example, simply rotate the I chord around to G and all the other notes fall into line so that you get: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim. Again, add 7ths or 9ths or other extensions to your taste.

Peace, Mooh.

Edit...Oops, sorry Jim, I just realized you weren't asking me.


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## GTmaker (Apr 24, 2006)

Mooh said:


> Assuming the key of C major, looking around the circle you find: F (IV major), C (I major), G (V major), D (II minor), A (VI minor, relative minor), E (III minor), B (7, diminished)...ie, a chord for each note of the scale. You may add 7ths, 9ths or whatever to taste.
> If the key is G major to use your example, simply rotate the I chord around to G and all the other notes fall into line so that you get: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim. Again, add 7ths or 9ths or other extensions to your taste.
> Peace, Mooh.
> Edit...Oops, sorry Jim, I just realized you weren't asking me.


I undestand " a chord for each note on the scale".
Please explain how the circle of 5ths gives us this patttern
In the key of C, F is the major lV. BUt its right beside the C not 4 steps away.
Etc etc.


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## Guest (Dec 22, 2009)

GTmaker said:


> I undestand " a chord for each note on the scale".
> Please explain how the circle of 5ths gives us this patttern
> In the key of C, F is the major lV. BUt its right beside the C not 4 steps away.
> Etc etc.


The circle of 5ths is all about illustrating _patterns_ in _relationships_. Mooh is simply pointing out relationships that are always true on the (major) circle:


The IV is always immediately counter-clockwise from the root on the circle
The V is always immediately clockwise from the root on the circle
The II is always two steps clockwise from the root
The VI is always three steps clockwise from the root
The III is always four steps clockwise from the root
The VII is always five steps clockwise from the root

There are other cues you can take from the circle of fifths. For example, on the major circle only the chord tones to the immediate left and right of the root are major tones. The rest are minor, relative minor or diminished seventh tones.

The circle helps you see the patterned relationships like that. The relationships might not be immediately obvious (for example, the fourth is immediately counter-clockwise and not four steps clockwise like you'd think) because the circle is organized to highlight many kinds of relationships. So there's some non-intuitiveness to overcome when first studying it. Such as the IV thing you pointed out. But you can see how having it organized the way it is makes remembering what the major chord tones in a scale are now.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

GTmaker said:


> I undestand " a chord for each note on the scale".
> Please explain how the circle of 5ths gives us this patttern
> In the key of C, F is the major lV. BUt its right beside the C not 4 steps away.
> Etc etc.


The circle ascends (clockwise) by fifths in order to calulate the number of sharps, ascends (counter-clockwise) by fourths in order to calculate the number of flats, in a particular key, and the chords that go with that key. 

Intervals like 4ths and 5ths are measured ascending from one note to another inclusively, ie C to F is a 4th (CDEF), and C to G is a 5th (CDEFG). The circle assumes the user knows that. 

This probably illustrates the concept better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

The circle is also *NOT* a linear representation of the intervals...a piano keyboard does that better.

Like this: http://www.purveslab.net/img/music_2.gif

Peace, Mooh.


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

If you go to MusicTheory.net and go to the lesson on Circle Progressions:

http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/html/id56_en.html

(Just skip to the diagram on the last page of the discussion.)

Then go to the lesson on Common Chord Progressions:

http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/html/id57_en.html

You can see how you can use a variation on the Circle of Fifths to build chord progressions.


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## Allfingers (Oct 27, 2009)

Thanks for the reference sites above. I spent some time wandering through them....bookmarked.

Re the circle of 5ths.

In my (probably unpopular opinion) the circle is not all that useful to guitar playing. One tends to learn the sharps, flats, chords in a key etc. by playing, doing scales, etc. This isn't to say the circle of 5ths has no value but that in my experience students look at the circle and 'sort of' get it....then forget the next time they look at it. Knowledge is good so knowing it helps...it's just over rated as a useful tool.


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

No problem Mooh, I was actually just asking anyone. I realize (too) about the chord for every note. I was just wondering about the most common progression. For instance, a lot of I, IV, V. progressions. What about the most common 4 chord progression? I, IV, V, ?. It is that chord I can never figure out when someone is playing a song, and never know what to try when they go there.

Thanks
Jim


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## seanmj (May 9, 2009)

GTmaker said:


> I undestand " a chord for each note on the scale".
> Please explain how the circle of 5ths gives us this patttern
> In the key of C, F is the major lV. BUt its right beside the C not 4 steps away.
> Etc etc.


My 2 cents...lol.

To explain how each note is harmonized within a given scale cannot be explained with the circle of 5ths alone... at some point intervals and chord construction enter into it.

Sean Meredith-Jones
http://www.seanmeredithjones.com


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## seanmj (May 9, 2009)

Jim DaddyO said:


> No problem Mooh, I was actually just asking anyone. I realize (too) about the chord for every note. I was just wondering about the most common progression. For instance, a lot of I, IV, V. progressions. What about the most common 4 chord progression? I, IV, V, ?. It is that chord I can never figure out when someone is playing a song, and never know what to try when they go there.
> 
> Thanks
> Jim


Probably the most popular 4 chord progression is III VI II V (aka "Rhythm Changes)... and there's a ton of different ways you might see it:

IE

E-7 A-7 D-7 G7
E-7 A7 D-7 G7
E-7 A7 D7 G7
E7 A7 D7 G7
E-7 Eb7 D-7 Db7
E7 A7 Ab7 G7

etc etc. Those examples go from poppy to "jazzy/bluesy" if you will when you twist things around a bit with different reharms.

Also regarding your I IV V ? question. In terms of where the V chord goes to....the V most commonly goes back to the I chord. It also can move deceptively to III- or VI-.... and still more deceptively to things like bVIMaj or bIIIMaj.

The thing about the V chord is knowing where to put it. This gets into harmonic rhythm (meaning how often the chords are changing). Usually it goes at the end of a phrase... not halfway through it. 

If you have a progression with 1 chord per bar... put the V chord on bar 4.

If you have a progression with 2 chords per bar... the V chord usually appears on beat 3 of the 2nd bar of the phrase. 

I could go on... but this was a thread about the circle of 5ths... oops

Sean Meredith-Jones
http://www.seanmeredithjones.com


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

seanmj said:


> My 2 cents...lol.
> 
> To explain how each note is harmonized within a given scale cannot be explained with the circle of 5ths alone... at some point intervals and chord construction enter into it.
> 
> ...


Yes. This is an incredibly important piece of theory to learn because it forms the basis for every chord progression... Once you know how to harmonize the scale, if someone tells you to play a II-V-I in G, you'll only have to think for a few seconds to come up with Am7-D7-Gmaj7.

Chord substitutions are a whole different business. =D


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