Circle of Fifths: Everything You Need to Know

the circle of fifths everything you need to know so you don't fail music class in 11 minutes there are 12 different musical pitches in western music theory and each one can be assigned a letter name here they are on the piano keyboard above or below that the pattern just repeats the notes sound basically the same just higher or lower in addition to looking at and thinking of the letter names chromatically as they appear on the piano we can also arrange them in this special pattern called the circle of fifths it doesn't look like much but this is an incredibly powerful reference tool with a number of useful properties and patterns you'll commonly see versions of the circle of fifths with information about major key signatures and relative minor keys but you can also use the circle to get a better understanding of harmony intervals transposition chord structure and probably a whole lot more honestly the circle seems to have insights that just keep on giving it's almost like a reference chart of useful math equations and the periodic table of elements and a color wheel all in one but musical like a magical musical device but to understand how it works it's helpful to know how it's built the structure of the circle of fifths is a bit like those drawings of impossible stairs where you keep going up or down but eventually you'll end up arriving at the same place but instead of going up or down a stair as you go around the notes go up a fifth clockwise and down a fifth counterclockwise and if you keep going you'll end up where you started this isn't possible in the physical world but it is possible in music let's see how this plays out on the piano we'll start on c and go up a perfect fifth which you could either think of as the fifth note of a major scale or as seven semitones if we go up another perfect fifth we get d and up a perfect fifth from d is a continuing the pattern the fifth note of a major is e the fifth note of e major is b a perfect fifth above b major is f sharp and seven semitones more brings us to d flat followed by a flat then e flat and b flat followed by f and would you look at that we're back at c keep in mind what's important is the letter name rather than any specific note in any specific octave if we wrote out the notes we just looked at on the piano it would look like this but there's no reason you can't use a high or low version of a note when it's more convenient these two versions of the notes from the circle have slightly different shapes but the note names are the same and they loop right back to the beginning just like a circle next this circle that we just made is missing a tiny detail these three at the bottom actually have two names because each note on the circle of fifths corresponds to a major scale which has a unique key signature and according to the rules of major scales there are three with n harmonic equivalents those scales can be written in two different ways but they actually sound the same and when we look at the key signatures for all these scales we see another interesting property of the circle starting at the top of the circle c major has no sharps or flats but as we go around the cycle clockwise we start adding sharps g major has one sharp d major has two sharps a has three e has four b has five f sharp has six and c sharp major has seven sharps going the other way adds flats the key signature for f major has one flat b flat has two flats e flat has three a flat has four d flat has five g flat has six and c flat major has seven flats so all the sharp keys are on this side and the number of sharps increases going clockwise and all the flat keys are on this side and the number of flats increase going counterclockwise and all the ones that have two versions are here at the bottom and the sharpened flat forms overlap perfectly and since every major key shares a key signature with a relative minor key you might also see some versions of the circle of fifths with the minor keys aligned with the relative major keys and keen observers will also see that the order of sharps and flats is right here on the circle clockwise for sharps and counterclockwise for flats so it's pretty obvious that the circle of fifths is a useful reference tool since it shows all the major and minor key signatures but why not just keep all that information in a list or a chart why does it have to be a circle other than the fact that it's kind of neat the reason for that has to do with all the other patterns that emerge on the circle that we mentioned earlier let's start with harmony harmony is a complex subject that can be broadly understood as the study of what chords are used in a piece of music and how those chords relate to each other three of the most ubiquitous chords are the ones built on the first fourth and fifth note of any given key in c major that refers to chords built on c f and g they're found in almost every piece of music you could think of these chords can appear in quite a few different versions but each one is still based on the same root note of 1 4 and 5 of c or c f and g now notice that f and g are right beside c on the circle for any key the iv chord is one step backwards on the circle and the v chord is one step forwards in e major the iv chord is a and the v chord is b in b flat major the iv chord is e flat and the v chord is f so in addition to major and minor key signatures the circle is also a great reference tool to quickly find chords related in any key and it isn't just for show you can hear how well these chords fit together listen as we move between c and its adjacent chords we can hear how well they fit together and how much they ground us in c major even popping over to the a minor chord works pretty well too generally speaking if you only move one step on the circle the chords will sound pretty related to each other even just a two-step jump can sound a bit surprising compared to the adjacent chords each jump will have a unique character that might sound pretty good or pretty odd depending on the context for the most part as we move forward in musical history the more comfortable composers and listeners would have been with larger jumps many of these sounds are interesting today but would have been rare or unheard of at different points in musical history moving directly across the circle is a pretty odd sound but it's possible to prepare the ear for that tonality by approaching one step at a time then if you normalize that key by hanging around it for a while the original key actually sounds kind of strange but by moving step wise you can head to pretty much any chord you like even all the way around the circle and no single chord change sounded particularly strange and you can certainly do this in either direction for a different flavor granted it's rare to go all the way around the circle in a piece of music but it's actually quite common while practicing many musicians practice chords scales and patterns through the entire cycle like this pattern in c followed by this pattern in f then b flat and so on and there's utility to practice going in the other direction as well that way all the common movements around the circle from any point are familiar on your instrument next up is intervals think of the circle like a clock we already know that moving one step clockwise is a perfect fifth up and one step counterclockwise is a perfect fifth down other intervals are reflected clockwise and counterclockwise as well two steps on the circle is either a major second up or down and three steps is a major sixth up or down every interval on the circle is reflected by going in the opposite direction here's a chart for all the intervals on the circle clockwise makes the interval go up and counterclockwise makes the interval go down this idea is useful for a couple of reasons first you could use this as a calculator to transpose a note or a key musicians who play transposing instruments need to do this all the time for instance most trumpets and clarinets are in b-flat so they need to play a major second up from concert pitch usually they're given music that's been prepared for them but say they've been asked to play a specific scale they can just move two steps clockwise on the circle if they're asked to play an e flat concert scale they simply move two steps clockwise and know that they need to play an f major scale e flat instruments like alto and baritone saxophone would need to move three steps clockwise and f instruments like horns would need to move just one step clockwise many musicians will find this a useful tool to transpose anything for their instrument quickly and accurately the second reason this idea of intervals on the circle of fifths is useful is because it provides a bit of insight into interval inversions and how and why they work for instance we know that the major third and minor sixth are inversions of each other c to e is a major third and e to c is a minor sixth they're the same note names but flipped around if we look at those intervals on the circle we see that the major third is four steps and the minor sixth is eight steps and together they close the circle you'll find that every interval and its inversion will close the circle and add up to 12 steps continuing this visualization we can analyze the structure of chords by looking at how each specific note of a chord falls on the circle for some pretty insightful patterns this is a major chord it's just a perfect fifth and a major third played at the same time the major chord is always in this shape on the circle you can move the shape anywhere and get a major chord because every major chord is a perfect fifth and a major third from the root comparing the shape of the major chord and at the parallel minor chord like c major and c minor you'll see that the shape is actually a perfect reflection of the major chord on the circle two notes stay the same c and g and only one note the third changes from e to e flat interestingly even though the major and minor third are right beside each other on the keyboard they're almost directly across from each other on the circle this may give some insight into why the two chords seem similar but are so different in sound and function there are also four note versions of these chords like the major seventh chord which is two perfect fifths between c and g and e and b and there's the minor seventh chord which is also two perfect fifths between c and g and e flat and b flat the two shapes aren't quite the same perfect reflection as the major and minor triads that we just looked at but it is pretty close but probably the most important four note chord is the dominant seventh chord that interval between the third and the seventh directly crossing the circle is known as the tritone and that's what gives the tension to a dominant chord which generally wants to resolve to this chord a closely related chord is the frighteningly named minor seven flat five chord it's just a reflection of the dominant chord on the circle but functions similarly because it maintains the same tritone between e and b flat yet another reflection of the dominant seventh chord is the equally frighteningly named tritone substitution which is just another dominant chord a tritone away similar to the minor seven flat five the third and seventh remain while the root and fifth change so the function is the same but the tonal color is quite different here's the sound of a standard cadence and here it is with a tritone substitution some chords have patterns that aren't spaced out at all and have their notes right beside each other on the circle a suspended iv chord looks like this and a suspended ii chord is pretty similar but with a different flavor the six nine chord pretty much just takes over one side of the circle entirely other chords have notes as far away from each other as possible on the circle the diminished triad is sort of spooky sounding and makes this shape and the diminished seventh chord fills in that last side of the circle finally the augmented chord trisects the circle equally with three notes that just can't get any further away from each other whether you're using the circle of fifths to learn and remember key signatures in parallel minor exploring interesting colors and properties of chords or calculating intervals and transpositions it's clear that the circle of fifths is an incredibly useful reference and visualization tool that almost every musician can make use of remember to like comment share and subscribe and check the description for links to more videos thanks for watching you

Channel: Brad Harrison Music

Views: 1,694,277

Keywords: music, music ed, music education, music lesson, lesson, music theory, theory, materials of music, how to not fail music class, made easy, for dummies, help, band class, circle of fifths, circle of fourths, cycle of fifths, cycle of fourths, chord structure, harmony, key signatures, relative minor, major keys, minor keys

Id: O43EBVnwNvo

Length: 11min 20sec (680 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020