8 Facts About the Circle of Fifths that you May Not Already Know

well my I was Wi-Fi well as my world one by one one hips up guys Brian from zombie guitar here in this lesson I'm going to be giving you eight facts about the circle of fifths that you may or may not already know all right some people don't even know what the circle of fifths is some people might know a little bit about the circle of fifths but there's actually a ton of information in there okay there's lots of information that can be used for improvisational purposes for composing music purposes there's just tons of stuff okay I actually have the circle of fifths tattooed on my forearm here some of my friends make fun about that but whatever I'm a music theory nerd I don't care I use it I actually use the circle of fifths in live situations when I'm playing on familiar Keys sometimes I refer down to the tattoo on my forearm to kind of give me the answer without actually having to think about it okay this it's kind of a little cheat sheet on my own okay so it's an extremely useful tool and with that said let me go on to the eight facts about okay so the first about the circle Fitz is one you probably already know but for those of you don't know this here it is so if you look at the circle fits the outer circle represents the twelve possible keys music there are only twelve keys in music each of the letters represents one of the twelve keys now the inner circle represents the relative minors of each of the possible twelve keys so in music every single one of the twelve Keys has a sadder version of itself and a happier version of itself that's how that's basically how I talk about relative major minor combinations the happier version and the sadder version okay so the key of C major is the key of C major major keys generally sound happy okay now the sadder version of C major is right below it a minor okay it's the same exact key only it's the sadder version minor is generally shattered major is generally happier the reason of the same key is because they share the same notes okay I can solo up and down the fretboard all day long in the key of C major and I'm only using seven notes okay there's really only seven notes spanned all up and down the fretboard I can solo up and down the fretboard all day long in the key of a minor and I'm using the same exact seven notes okay a relative major minor pair cannot you know they share the same exact seven notes as one another so the outer circle is the happy version of the twelve keys the inner circle is the sad version of the twelve keys okay likewise the key of g-major that's the happy version of that key right next to it or at below it you see a minor that's the sadder version of that key those two keys share the same notes as one another alright so that is the first fact about the circle of fifths okay so the second fact about this circle fits is that in any one of the twelve keys of music there are six diatonic chords okay every single key contains six chords alright and they are grouped together in groupings of six on the circle of fifths so let's take the key of C major for example okay the key of C major the circle chords right here are your six diatonic chords for that particular key C major is your one chord F major is your four chord G major is your five chord okay that's the one point five the three major chords in that key your other three chords and three minor chords a minor would be your six chord D minor would be your two chord E minor would be your three chord those are the six diatonic chords found in the key of C major okay now let's try it for another key let's take the key of E major for example okay you see circled here is the grouping of six a majors right top center of the grouping of six so in this example a major would be your one chord D major would be your four chord E major would be our five chord you have your one four five and three major chords now you have your three minor chords in this grouping of six as well F sharp minor is your sixth chord C sharp minor is your three chord and B minor is your two chord okay so that's those six chords for that particular key this works for all twelve keys okay this is how the circle fits groups diatonic chords together now this is useful for writing music alright so say you want to write a song in the key of a major okay or extra wire same thing happier version or sadder version and you want to know the six diatonic chords that are available to you in that particular key well let's try it out right now I'm just going to kind of just make up a song and I'm going to play those six chords okay so a major to D major to E major to a major to c-sharp minor to F sharp minor the be mine to E major back to the a okay so I could just play that [Music] boom shortened song right there six diatonic chords all right in the key of a major try it for all 12 keys you're going to see that it works that's your second fact okay so the third fact about the circle of fifths is that it groups 1 4 & 5 chords together right next to each other okay the one chord being in the middle the 4 chord being right to the counterclockwise direction and the 5 chord being right into the clockwise direction okay so this works for both major chords and minor chords ok so say you want to know the 1 form 5 chords of the key of a major ok a is your one D major is your for a major is your 5 okay [Music] okay those three chords go together very nicely okay most colonies chords in any key one four and five chords it also works for minor chords okay the groupings are exactly the same so say you want to write a piece of music that is now in a minor key you want to sound the little bluesier you want to sound a little sadder so you don't want to be doing something in the key of a major now you want to do it keep a minor okay same concept applies find your a minor move clockwise that would be your 500 okay of the minor key if you're now considering a minor to be your new one chord okay the D minor would be your four chord the E minor would be your five chord okay so [Music] okay so one four or five groupings work not only for major keys but they also work for minor keys the groupings are exactly the same for both okay right in the river one clockwise is your five counterclockwise is your four okay so now the fourth fact about the circle of fifths is that you can use it to determine both major thirds and minor thirds of any given note alright so if you look at a piano or you look at a guitar fretboard a major third is always going to be found four half steps away from the original note the minor third is always going to be found three half steps away from the original note okay so let's say you want to take the note C and you want to figure out what the major third interval is away from the note C okay so find your notes see here goes on the eighth fret and then you count up one two three four four half steps away from the note C is e e is the major third of C okay that's that's that interval now if you want to determine what the minor third of the note C is you count three half steps up okay so again start on your C count 1 2 3 D flat E flat is the minor third of C okay you can also use the circle of fifths to determine the same exact answer okay so if you want to determine what the major third of C is you start on the note C right up at the top and you moved in the clockwise direction for notes ok this is going to give you your major third so C move clockwise 4 nodes away you end on E ok that's telling you is the major third of C also if you want to determine the minor third of C now you just move in the opposite direction and you move three notes away ok so start on C move in the counterclockwise direction three notes away you end on the note e flat ok he flat is your minor third of C it's the same thing ok you can do that you can look on the piano you can look on your fretboard or you can look on the circle of fifths to give your answer ok try it for a now okay say you want to take the note a and determine what its major third is and what its minor third is ok so a move for in the clockwise direction you're going to end on the note D flat D flat is the same note as C sharp both of those notes of the exact same thing that is your answer okay that's your major third interval away from a okay so a C sharp their major third apart alternatively if you want to find the minor third of a you start with a note a you move in a counterclockwise direction three notes away and you arrive at C okay C is the minor third of the note a alright so the circle fits can help you instantly find your intervals okay your fourths your fits your major thirds and your minor thirds very simple okay that's the fourth fact okay so now the fifth circle of fifths is you can use it to implement out of key chords into your song or chord progression that you are writing alright so you already know that you have six diatonic chords and then given key alright so let's take the key of C major you have your six diatonic chords you have your C at your f you g-give a minor and of your D minor every minor is your six diatonic chords you can go ahead you can write a song using those six chords that's fine you probably already know that that was fact number two about the circle of fifths now what if you want to spice things up and you want to throw in some house key chords where do those out key chords come from do you just randomly select a random chord well you can but usually when you see out of key chords in a song they come from the parallel minor key okay so for in the key of C major and we want to borrow chords from somewhere else that aren't in that key the first place you want to look is in the key of C minor okay so the grouping of C minor is always going to be right next to the grouping of C major chords in the counterclockwise direction so you see your grouping of six here does your six diatonic chords for C major the grouping right - the counterclockwise direction those are your six diatonic chords for the key of C minor okay so those six chords would be chords that you can pull from in order to implement them into your song okay I'm sure you're playing a piece of music and in the key of C before maybe you were playing a song and you seemed to be flat there and you notice the b-flat didn't quite sound like it was in key but it also didn't sound bad it added just enough interest to be like okay well that was cool you know that's the whole purpose of borrowing chords from the minor from the parallel minor key okay so not only do you have your six diatonic chords but you have right to the counterclockwise direction the six diatonic chords of the parallel monarchy from which you can borrow chords from okay one now that you know this if you didn't already know this you can go ahead and listen to Elton John songs and Billy Joel songs and all kinds of questions and now you're going to know where these al key chords come from more often than not they come from the parallel minor key or if you're already in a minor key you can borrow from the parallel major key ok the works in both directions so that is your fifth fact of the circle fifths okay so your sixth fact about the circle of fifths is the one that is usually the first fact taught to everyone when presented with the circle and that is that it shows you the key signatures of each of the keys okay so starting at the top here in C C has no sharps or flats in it okay that's called the white keys on the piano it's just the notes C d e f G a and B there's no sharps there's no flats now if you start moving in the clockwise direction okay each subsequent step that you move in the clockwise direction you add a sharp to it okay so the key of G has one sharp the key of D has 2 sharps the key of a has three sharps the key of E has four sharps the key of B has five sharps okay and that's how it moves in that direction then you get all the way to the bottom that's your the wierdest key which is just full of sharps and flats that's the key of F sharp or G flat whichever one you want to call it okay and that has six sharps in it and the same thing works if you move in the counterclockwise direction okay so C at the top has no sharps or flats if you move the McCown clockwise direction we start adding flats okay so the key of F has one flat the key of B flat has two flats the key of E flat has three flats alright and so on alright so that's how the circle fits arranges key signatures that's why I put this as number six and not as number one because as a guitar player you probably don't really care about that a piano player a saxophone player or a clarinet player a trumpet player they may care about that because they don't have the benefit of having moveable shapes and moveable chords and all that cool stuff that guitar players do so they may need to not may they definitely need to know that information okay as a guitar player that piece of information may not be super important to you so but whatever that's fact number six okay so now the seventh fact is another one which most guitar players probably won't really care too much about this would be more applicable to other instruments that aren't movable in nature and like the guitar so if you want to know exactly which sharps or which flats are added into each key the circle of fifths also gives you that information okay so as you know the top C no sharps no flats now if you are in the key of G you know that you have one sharp okay what is the sharp what note is sharp is the note F sharp okay so if you move to the key of G I'm sorry if you move to the key of D you know that the key of D has 2 sharps in it what are the two sharps and the key of D well F sharp is in there and then C sharp is in there okay you see how this is working or kind of moving back a few notes and that's where their answers are found okay move to the key of a okay a has three sharps in it what are the sharps found in the key of a okay move back counterclockwise in your circle of fifths f sharp C sharp and G sharp okay see how this is working key of e he has four sharps in it what are those four sharps okay look at your circle of fifths f c g and d those are your four sharps found in the key of e see what i'm saying and this also works in flat direction as well you can also use the circle to give you what you want to know so start on the top see see no sharps no flats move to the counterclockwise direction you are on f it has one flat what is the one flat and F is b-flat okay now you move to the key of b-flat that has two flats in it what are those two flats okay b-flat and e-flat all right now you move to the e-flat that has three flats in it what are the three flats B flat E flat and a flat all right now you move to the key of a flat a front has four flats in it what are those four flats B flat E flat a flat D flat see how the circle fizzes it's all laid out for you right there okay maybe you know may be kind of tough to remember this stuff like that but whatever if you have have a printout if you have it tattooed on your arm whatever you can refer to this whenever you want and it's a very very useful tool to just help you memorize this information again fact number six and fact number seven as a guitar player you may not care about this so much this may be much more useful to other instruments but for the purpose of completion of this lesson I figured I would add it anyway okay so that's fact number seven the circle of fifths gives you you know which sharps and which flats are found in each key okay and they're organized as I just told you alright so on to the last one alright so the 8 fact about the circle of fifths is simply just a memorization tip alright now it may be kind of tough to memorize all 12 of these keys and order of it you can make up mnemonic devices if you want but the way that I've always been able to stick this stuff into my head and really get it in there is to simply recognize that the word bead is located on both the sharp side and the flat side of the circle of fifths okay now I'm pretty good I was always pretty good at memorizing with sharp side I guess because those are keys with it playing often but um you know even if you have trouble memorizing that just locate the word bead okay so you are going to have to remember that the C's on the top you're gonna have to remember that F is right next to it in G's right next to it okay and then you have to memorize the one on the bottom which is f-sharp or g-flat okay so if you can memorize just that which is just you know four of the 12 then you just have to see the word bead going in both directions on the flat side and the sharp side okay so started from the bottom and then moving in the counterclockwise direction you see how it says be e a d there's bead if you're on the flat side and you can't remember the order of flats well right next to the F starting on the B flat you have B flat E flat a flat D flat bead alright so that helps me I know some people have some funky mnemonic devices like cats go down again whatever however they want to member it I think it's a lot easier to just simply remember the word bead know where bead is located on both sides of the circle fits and that makes it very very useful for memorization purposes okay so that is the eight facts of the circle of fifths you know print out a copy of it hopefully you found this information helpful I know I did especially when it comes to composing music it makes everything makes so much more sense when it comes to writing songs because now I have a little cheat sheet right in front of me telling me okay those are the chords that I have available to me and everything works alright so that's it for this lesson hope you enjoyed it leave me a comment shoot me a message and keep watching thanks a lot [Music]

Channel: Brian Kelly

Views: 691,796

Keywords: guitar, guitar lessons, music theory, fretboard, circle of fifths, diatonic key, major key, minor key

Id: 50CpDZvTWks

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2017