16 Practical Applications of the Circle of 5ths

hey guys brian kelly here from zombie guitar today's video is my 285th youtube upload and if you've been following my channel for a while you probably know that i use the circle of fifths in almost every single one of my videos i would say that at least 250 of my 285 videos use the circle of fifths to teach the concept that the video is about this is one of the most useful tools in all of music theory that is why i have it tattooed on my forum here i'm sure you guys have seen that in this video i'm going to give you 16 practical applications for the circle of fifths [Music] all right so the reason that i like the two circle version of the circle of fifths is because the outer circle displays the major chords the inner circle displays the minor chords that also represents the major version of each key and the minor version of each key in music there's different perspectives as to how many keys there are i did a video that goes through all of the different perspectives as to how many keys are in music you can check that video out i'll put a link to that one below i like to go with the 12 key model that is just my preference that's the easiest way to think about music in my opinion in the 12 key model pick a key one of the 12 keys there's a major version of that key and then there's a minor version of that key the major version has a happier sound to it the minor version has a sadder sound to it so take c major and a minor for example in the key of c major all of the notes are going to be exactly the same as the notes of the key of a minor and all of the chords that are found in the key of c major are going to be the same exact chords that are found in the key of a minor so the major key and its relative minor counterpart share the exact same stuff it's just that if you say okay this is the key of c major it's going to have a happier sound when you play music you write music based around that c major being your home your tonal center same thing if you take that same exact stuff all of those same chords all the all the same notes and you say okay a minor is my home a minor is going to be my tonal center chord i'm going to write music using this stuff but everything is going to revolve around the a minor chord it's going to sound sadder so you can easily determine the chords that are found in any given key simply by using your circle of fifths and looking at the grouping of six that are surrounding the key in question so if you want to know what the chords are in the key of say a major you have this grouping of six right here these are your chords that are in the key of a major the minor version of this key would be f sharp minor alright so if you want to write music and you want it to be happier sounding let's do that right now let's just use some chords from this key i'm just going to write a song in a major [Music] [Music] all right so that was a song in a major i used most of these chords everything that i used was right within this grouping of six nothing outside of it so everything was in the key of a major so if i want to write like a sadder song or something like that in the same key i'm just gonna make the f minor chord to be my home my tonal center so let's try that out [Music] same grouping of six same chords that i'm pulling from i was just like okay f sharp minor that's going to be my home chord that's my tonal center i'm ending the song on that leaving the listener with just like a darker type of feeling all right so uh yeah that's the grouping of six trick for uh the circle of fits it works for all 12 keys all right so what is a key a key is just seven notes that you use to write music with to write in that key so you take those seven notes and you can create chords out of it you know as long as you only stick to those seven notes and you don't use any outside notes and you're playing 100 in that key how do you determine the seven notes that are in the key in question well you can use your circle of fifths to do that so in order to do this you start with the note that represents the key in question so let's say we're trying to determine what the seven notes are for the key of a major so you're gonna start on the a that's gonna be one of the seven notes obviously then you're gonna go in the counterclockwise direction and that's gonna be one of your other seven notes then you're gonna go in the clockwise direction until there's a total of seven notes so that's your seven notes for the key of a major so your seven notes in the key of a major are going to be a b c sharp d e f sharp g sharp those are the seven notes for the key signature of a major now you're going to notice that you know once you get to the bottom of the circle there's a d flat there and there's an a flat there keep in mind that you know you have what is known as enharmonic equivalence so d-flat is the same note as c-sharp a-flat is the same note as g-sharp we're going to talk more about sharps and flats coming up in this video if you're a little bit confused about what i'm talking about here but just bear with me and then of course this exact same information applies to the key of f sharp minor because the key of a major and the key of f sharp minor are a relative major minor pair meaning that they share the exact same seven notes they're the same key signature so if you want to know what the notes of the key of f sharp minor r you do this exact same thing those are your seven notes for the key of a major those are your seven notes for the key of f sharp minor all right so let's talk about that sharps and flats thing so when we looked at the key of a major i said that there's sharps in it why did i use sharps and why didn't i use flats circle fits gives you that information so everything that's on the right side of the circle those are going to be keys that use sharps everything that's on the left side of the circle there's going to be keys that use flats so the key of a major has sharps in it the key of b major has sharps in it the key of f sharp minor has sharps in it the key of b minor has sharps in it so if you go on to the other side of the circle of fifths the left side that's going to be your flat keys so that applies to both the major keys and their respective relative minors then the one at the very bottom could be considered either the key of f sharp or the key of g flat they're both the same thing it's just that if you call it the key of f sharp it's going to use sharps it's going to contain six sharps in it if you write it out as the key of g flat it's going to contain flats it's going to have six flats in it in any of the 12 keys there are going to be three major chords found in that key three minor chords found in that key and then you're gonna have one diminished triad when i'm using the circle of fits the one that has the outer circle and the inner circle and we look at this grouping of six there's only major chords and minor chords in the grouping of six there's no diminished chords in order to do this you do the thing where you determine your seven notes for the key in question and then you just look at the very last one in the clockwise direction that's going to be what your diminished chord is so let's say that we want to know what the diminished chord is in the key of c major or a minor you do your you know start on the c one to the counterclockwise direction five in the clockwise direction the one at the very end in the clockwise direction there's that b right there that's your answer so you can also use the circle of fifths to determine your pentatonic notes so the pentatonic scale is just five notes those five notes are five of the seven total notes of the key so the key of c major has seven notes the key of a minor has those same seven notes it's just called either c major or a minor same seven notes five of those seven notes is the pentatonic scale so if you want to determine what your c major pentatonic notes are or your a minor pentatonic notes which are going to be the exact same five notes you can use the circle of fifth to do this there's two ways to do this number one start on the note c counterclockwise by one clockwise by five that gives you your seven notes for the key in question cross out the ones on both ends all the way in the counterclockwise direction and the clockwise direction cross those two notes out the five remaining notes those are your pentatonic notes that's your c major pentatonic scale notes that's your a minor pentatonic scale notes that's the first way so the second way to make this determination will be to start with your grouping of six so we're gonna stick with the same key here we're gonna stick with the key of c major slash a minor you have your grouping of six so instead of looking at these as chords we're just going to look at them as individual notes so c f g a d e so we want to determine what the five pentatonic notes are so in order to do this based on the grouping of six you simply cross out the one that's in the outer circle counterclockwise position which in this case is f so cross out the f the five remaining notes those are your pentatonic notes this gives your c major pentatonic scale notes this gives your a minor pentatonic scale notes same five notes relative major minor pair major triads minor triads you want to know the notes of any of the 12 major triads or any of the 12 minor triads these are also just called chords so 12 major chords 12 minor chords it's the same thing what are the three notes that make up a c major chord c e and g using your circle of fifths this forms a little triangle so you have your c don't consider this an e minor we're just considering these individual notes now so the note c the note e and the note g those are your notes for a c major chord what are the notes that make up a d major chord d f sharp and a there's your little triangle cluster what are the notes that make up an e flat major chord e flat g b flat same little triangle cluster so what about for minor chords otherwise known as minor triads it's the same thing it's still going to form a little triangle cluster it's just the triangle is going to be configured a bit differently so what are the notes that make up a g minor chord for example so you have a g you have a b flat and you have a d that little triangle cluster that gives your answer what about an a minor chord a c e little triangle cluster this works for all 12 major chords all 12 minor chords so this right here is typically what people talk about first when they give circle of fifths presentations so the number of sharps or flats in any given key so how many sharps or flats are in the key of c major there are zero the one at the very top of the circle that says there's no sharps or no flats in that particular key moving in the clockwise direction you add a sharp each time so in the key of g the seven notes that make up the key of g major or the key of e minor relative major minor pair they're going to share the same as x7 notes is one another that particular key is going to have one sharp in it it's going to have six natural notes and one sharp in it the key of d major which shares the same seven notes is the key of b minor that's going to have two sharps in it the next key in that direction is gonna have three sharps the next key is gonna have four sharps until you get to the bottom that's gonna have six sharps so then we have the flat keys so again you start at the top you have your key of c major slash a minor that's the key that has no sharps no flats in it one in the counterclockwise direction you have your key of f major which has the relative minor of d minor those two keys share the exact same seven notes as one another that key has one flat in it move in that same direction by one that key has two flats in it keep going you have three flats then four flats then five flats then you get to the bottom that's the key of g flat that has six flats in it alright so the key of g major has one sharp in it cool what is the note that's made sharp how do you know what that is or the key of a major has three sharps in it cool how do you know what those notes are that are made sharp in the key of a major use your circle of fifths to make this determination so for the key of g we know that the key of g major has one sharp in it so go to the g you go back two go in the counterclockwise direction by two f that's the note that's made sharp in the key of g major the key of g major or the g major scale g a b c d e f sharp that's your g major scale that's your key signature for that particular key what about for the key of d major what are the we know that d major has two sharps in it all right so what are the notes that are made sharp in the key of d major all right so you have your f and then you go one more in the clockwise direction so the notes f and the notes c are going to be the two notes that are made sharp in the key of d major the key of a major we know that a major contains three sharps what notes are made sharp in the key of a major start on the f clockwise one there's your c clockwise one there's your g the key of a major has three sharps in it those are your three sharps all right you see the pattern here so that's for sharps all right so now for the flat keys starting at the top you have your key of c major that is no sharps no flats in it moving in the counterclockwise direction your key of f major which is the same key signature as d minor that has one flat in it what note is flat which is the flat note the answer is b flat so keep moving in the counterclockwise direction what are the flat notes in the key of b flat major slash g minor what are the two flat notes that are found in that particular key the answer is b flat and e flat moving along what are the three flats that are found in the key of e flat major c minor what are the three flats b flat e flat a flat so the pattern keeps going as you continue to move around the circle in the counterclockwise direction and that's how you determine which notes are made flat right so dominant chords otherwise known as seventh chords if you see a chord symbol that says something like c7 that's a c dominant seven chord or if you see something that says like g7 that's a g dominant seven chord so you see a chord symbol that just has a seven after it you don't see any major anything like that like it's not a g major seven or a g maj7 or a g minor seven it's just g seven dominant chord dominant chords have this tension to them all right and this tension wants to move to something and the something that it wants to move to is the chord that's directly next to it on the circle of fifths in the counterclockwise direction so let's say that we have a g7 chord or a g dominant seven chord sounds something like this [Music] the thing that it wants to move to is the c chord that's the chord that's right next to it on the circle fifth in the counterclockwise direction so we'll place a g dominant seven chord followed by a c major chord [Music] tension release dominant chords or tension the chord right in the counterclockwise direction to it release so this also applies to minor chords as well so dominant chords which have tension can also be released by playing a minor chord directly after it let's say that our goal chord is an f sharp minor so this is our release f sharp minor [Music] so what would be the dominant seventh chord to play right before that that causes the tension so you can look at your circle of fifths find your f sharp minor chord right in the clockwise direction to it you see c sharp minor right but it's not a c-sharp minor chord that we want to play it's a dominant seventh chord that we want to play dominant seventh chords are what create that tension so if our if our resolution is an f-sharp minor chord a c sharp dominant seven chord is going to be the tension chord so let's play a c sharp dominant seven chord something like this [Music] works for major chords works for minor chords all right so numbering chord progressions you may have seen things or heard things before like that's a one five six four progression or that's a two five one progression or something like that this can all be determined on the circle of fifths based on the grouping of six it doesn't matter which key you're in it's just the grouping of six it's always going to be the same so if we want to determine what a 1 5 6 4 chord progression is in the key of c it's going to be the exact same location within the grouping of 6 as it would be for the key of g or the key of e or whatever so your one let's go to the key of c major slash a minor just to start out with your one is always going to be outer circle center position your two is always going to be inner circle counterclockwise three is going to be inner circle clockwise four is outer circle counterclockwise 5 is outer circle clockwise 6 is inner circle center position if i want to play a 1 5 6 4 chord progression in the key of c major i can do this using this grouping of 6. one five six four [Music] that's a 1 5 6 4 chord progression in the key of c major what if i want to play a 1 5 6 4 chord progression in the key of d major [Music] same exact thing same location within the grouping of six this is how you transpose music from one key to another key very very easily so you can also use this grouping of six information to help you out with modes and modal chord progressions and all that kind of stuff so all that a mode is is it's another perspective of a key signature all right so so far up until now we've been looking at two perspectives of key signatures so when you write music in the key of c major and you use all of the stuff from the key of c major and you're saying all right the c major chord is my home chord that's my tonal center we're using all the chords you don't have to use all of the chords but we're using only chords that are found in this particular key but the tonal center of the home chord the chord that's most likely going to be the last chord played in the song is going to be a c major chord everything being centered around that chord that's called ionian so it's another name for a major key ionian the sound that is produced from a major key is the ionian mode sound which comes from making your tonal center to be that chord right there the chord that's in the center position outer circle you can use the exact same stuff the exact same notes the exact same chords from this particular key signature but instead of making the c major chord to be home your tonal center make the a minor chord to be home as a result the music is going to sound sadder it's going to have a different sound overall that sound that you're hearing that sadder darker sound is known as the aeolian mode sound that comes from making that chord in the inner circle center position your tonal center within the key signature you can also make any of these other chords within your key signature to be your tonal center as well and that's what modes are so inner circle counterclockwise position dorian inner circle clockwise position phrygian outer circle counterclockwise lydian outer circle clockwise mixolydian and then you have that seventh chord that's in the key that's not found in the grouping of six that diminished chord that's going to be your locrian mode so as we just talked about modes are sounds ionian mode has this happier brighter type of sound to it the aeolian mode otherwise known as a minor key has a darker type of sound to it alright so one is brighter one is darker all of the seven modes have a certain level of brightness to it or a certain level of darkness to it and the circle of fifths organizes this in the exact order from brightness to darkness start on the note c go one in the counterclockwise direction go five in the clockwise direction that gives you your seven notes for the key signature of c major we've already talked about that in this video so the brightest of the modes is going to be the f f lydian the next brightest is going to be c c ionian the next brightest is g mixolydian then you have d dorian then you have a aeolian then you have e phrygian then you have b locrian so those are your seven modes for the key signature of c major organized from brightest to darkest so so far we've been talking a lot about playing in one single key that's that whole grouping of sixth thing in the grouping of six you have your three major chords three minor chords that are found in your key but a lot of times in music you're not just always going to stick to just the chords that are found in your key those are going to be most of the chords that are going to take place in the music but there's going to be some outside chords thrown in just to kind of make things more interesting so where do those outside chords come from more often than not they're going to be what is known as borrowed chords so for this example we're going to play in the key of c major slash a minor and we're going to borrow some chords from the parallel key of c minor so the key that we're playing in is the key of c major but we just want some outside chords to pull from just to kind of make things more interesting so we're going to look to the parallel key it's called c minor c major c minor on the circle of fifths that's going to be your neighboring grouping of six we now have this new pool of cords to pull from so i'm just going to give you one quick example here and i'm going to borrow the b flat chord and the a flat chord from this neighboring key [Music] so you can also borrow chords in the other direction too you could say that your initial starting key is the key of a minor you can call this initial starting key the key of c major you can call it the key of a minor call whatever you want so if we're calling it a minor then the parallel key would be a major so the chords for the key of a major are in the grouping of six in the other direction so now we have this other grouping of six from which we can pull chords from so let's try to do something there [Music] all right just another quick example right there i didn't even use an a minor chord there but i was just calling the key signature i was just saying that it was a minor borrowing from the parallel key of a major i just it just gave me another grouping of six chords to pull from all right so finally we have intervals so intervals are things like perfect fifth perfect fourth minor third major third things like that so you can use the circle of fifths to determine your intervals and it's always going to be the same no matter which note you start on so the outer circle of the circle of fifths there's 12 spots on it each one of those 12 spots represents one of the 12 notes that we have to start on so let's say we want to start on the note c so starting on the note c and i want to determine what a perfect fifth above c is well i just go one in the clockwise direction a perfect fifth above c is the note g that's going to work for any note that you start on if i start on the note a what's a perfect fifth above a the answer is e it's always going to be 1 in the clockwise direction i'm just going to use c for all the examples but this is going to work for any of the 12 possible starting notes the relationship to the starting note is always going to be the same so starting on c a perfect fifth is in the clockwise direction a perfect fourth above c is in the counterclockwise direction so perfect fourth above c is the note f starting on c a major second above c is the note d starting on c a minor seventh above c is the note b flat so expanding out a little bit more again starting on c as our reference note a major sixth above c is going to be the note a minor third above the note c is going to be the note e flat and then moving out a little bit more c is our starting point so a major third above the note c is going to be the note e a minor sixth above the note c is going to be the note a flat moving out a little bit more c is our starting point so a major seventh above c is going to be the note b and a minor second above c is going to be the note d flat and then finally we have what is known as a tritone and that is directly across on the circle of fifths so the note c the tritone this is also known as a flat five interval or a sharp four interval this is that uh the devil's interval it's sometimes called it's the most dissonant interval that there is that's directly across from the reference note so c and then f-sharp that's a tritone so far we've talked about intervals in relation to the c uh intervals in the upwards direction so uh a major second above the note c would be the note d uh major third above the note c would be the note e perfect fifth above the note c would be the note g so so far everything that i've given you was intervals above the original starting note there's also below all right so what's a perfect fifth below c what's a major second below c what's a minor seventh below c so this is where things get confusing so for every perfect fifth above it's also going to be a perfect fourth below for every perfect fourth above it's also going to be a perfect fifth below it's easiest to visualize this on a piano start on the note c on the piano only focus on the white notes forget about all the black notes start on the note c count up five notes in the c major scale which is just the white notes c d e f g so a perfect fifth above c you're going to end on the note g start on the note c and count down until you get to the g so c b a g so counting down it's only four below c so g is five above c g is also four below c so that's why it's a perfect fifth above c a perfect fourth below c f start on the note c f is a perfect fourth above but a perfect fifth below so this reciprocal thing is going to be true no matter how far along the circle you are away from the original starting note the note d is a major second above c the note b flat is a minor seventh above c so the reciprocal is also true so the note d is going to be a minor seventh below the note b flat is going to be a major second below alright so the reciprocal holds true and this is true the entire way around the circle so fourths and fifths those are reciprocal intervals with one another major second minor sevenths those are reciprocals minor thirds major six major thirds minor sixth major sevenths and minor seconds tritones are perfectly symmetrical so there is no reciprocal interval with that one i think this video is getting long enough for today though that's going to uh do it so i hope you guys like this one i love the circle of fifths i highly recommend that you get it tattooed on your arm if you do get it tattooed on your strumming hand that way when you're fretting chords you can still hold down the chord and then you can refer to your circle of fifths on your arm and then get back to strumming so i hope you guys enjoyed it see you later thank you [Music] you

Channel: Brian Kelly

Views: 40,835

Keywords: guitar, guitar lesson, zombie guitar, circle of 5ths, circle of 4ths, music theory, key signatures

Id: _dc3UC9XgEQ

Length: 29min 57sec (1797 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2022