Songs that use the Circle of Fifths progression

this is the circular fifth chord progression a chord progression where with each chord change we're moving by the interval of a fifth which effectively means that as we move around the chord progression we're moving around the circle of fifths now this corporation has been used for centuries in a whole range of different styles of music for example jazz [Music] or rock music [Music] or disco music [Music] or even classical music this chord progression just has a very satisfying sound like with each chord change it just sounds like we're landing in the correct place like it's almost meant to be put together like this and the reason for this super satisfying sound comes down to the chord progression's namesake the circle of fifths the perfect fifth is beyond the octave the most consonant and universally satisfying interval whether we're talking about notes in the melody about key centers in a key change or about chords in the chord progression if they're a fifth away from each other they're going to work well together chords that are related by the interval of a fifth are considered to be highly compatible closely related so moving between them has a very satisfying sound so in our circle of progression almost every chord change is the movement of a perfect fifth this makes every chord change sound very natural very logical and satisfying now i say almost every chord change because there is actually one chord change here that's not a perfect fifth this one this is actually a diminished fifth but we'll talk more about why that's there later so it's the fact that these chords are moving by a fifth each time moving around the circle of fifths which makes them sound so satisfying but what actually is the circle of fifths the circle of fifths is simply a tool that musicians use to conceptualize how notes and chords and key centers are related to each other we can actually arrange the twelve pictures of western music into a circle like this where each one is a perfect fifth away from each other and as you can see in a very satisfying way our 12 pictures can wrap around this circle each time being a perfect fifth away from another arranging the 12 notes around the circle like this is a very effective way to understand how closely related two notes are for example if we're talking about key centers notes that are next door to each other on the circle of fifths will be closely related because they share all but one note with each other for example c is sat next to f and g the key of c has all but one note in common with the key of f and the key of g the key of f is exactly the same as c major but has a b flat rather than b and the key of g is exactly the same as c but has an f sharp rather than an f natural so these keys are highly compatible they're closely related moving between them will result in a very smooth and cohesive modulation but on the other side of the circle is f sharp the key of f sharp is very much not related to the key of c so this means that whether we're talking about a key change or a melodic change or a chord change moving between c and f sharp will sound stark disjointed and unrelated this doesn't necessarily make it bad sometimes we want that starkness but if we understand the relationship between different notes between different chords and key centers using the circle of fifths we can make better informed decisions about which notes to move between so basically if a chord progression moves by step around the circle of fifths it's going to have that satisfying sense of each chord being related to the next it sounds like it all fits together [Applause] [Music] and inversely if i jump around the circle of fifths at random we'll wind up with some chord changes that sound very unrelated and chaotic [Music] now the circular fifth chord progression the one that we've looked at so far today travels anti-clockwise around the circle [Music] now this is the chord progression that is usually labeled the circular fifth chord progression however we can have other chord progressions that take advantage of the circle of fifths for example what about if we traveled clockwise around the circle this is what happens in here comes the sun [Music] and it's also happening here in jimi hendrix's hey joe you can hear how each chord change sort of folds neatly into the next one the movement is so natural and frictionless traveling by fifths like this is actually a great way of moving between two chords that are usually quite unrelated and distant for example here in hey joe the chords of c major and e major are actually quite unrelated if the chord progression just jumped straight from c to e it would sound quite stuck but by moving step by step around the circle we can travel from c major to e major in a very frictionless logical way [Music] i think for the majority of songwriters they're not actively thinking about the circle of fifths when they write these chord progressions they're just being drawn towards these progressions because they just sound so satisfying but that isn't true of all songwriters and some songwriters and composers will actually use the circle of fifths as a tool to help them complete a chord progression for example when ray mantarak was composing the keyboard intro to the doors light my fire he decided that the progression should travel around the circle of fifths to emulate the sound of something that bark would write now for the first two chord changes rey moves clockwise around the circle but then from the f chord onwards he moves anticlockwise smoothly jumping from chord to chord before then in actually quite a stark jump shifting to an a major chord [Music] in this interview we can hear ray describing how he was aiming to emulate the circular fifth movement that he had seen in many of the bark pieces that he had learnt as a student it was a it was a a box circle of fifths as it's called um i knew i was going to end up on an a minor but we had to get to that a minor so i went from a g d f flat a and then modulated to the a minor and it just came out of uh you know of 15 20 years of music or practice now i mentioned earlier that in the circular fifth chord progression every chord is moving by a perfect fifth apart from one this chord change is the interval of a diminished fifth instead so why is this here why can't we just make every chord change a perfect fifth well that's because to have a chord progression that purely used perfect fifths it would have to travel all the way around the circle of fifths meaning it would take a minimum of 12 chords and this would make it quite awkward to fit into an eight bar phrase so when composers and songwriters actually use the circle of fifths in their chord progressions rather than making every chord change a perfect fifth they will tend to make at least one chord change a different interval to allow the progression to neatly resolve back to the tonic chord at the end of an eight bar phrase in the examples we've looked at at the beginning of the video this issue was solved by placing this diminished fifth here so we have enough time to neatly resolve back to our tonic chord but this isn't the only solution cat steven's wild world also uses the circle of fifths progression however he uses a different solution to create the resolution back to the tonic chord wild wild follows the circle of fifths until this point where we instead get the movement of a third and then a second then from here he can travel in fifths again and end the phrase neatly back where he began now that i lost everything to you so you wanna start something new and it's breaking my heart you're believing and some songs just keep the circular fifth progression just down to four bars rather than eight bars for example isn't she lovely by stevie wonder follows the circle of fifth chord progression for three chords and then moves by minor third to reset the progression back to where he started this gives us a shorter more concise progression which still benefits from the circular fifth's movement [Music] perfect fifths as i mentioned earlier are generally considered to be the most satisfying and purest interval the purest way that we can move between two notes or or two chords but different composers will find different ways to mix the perfect fifth with other intervals because of course even if the perfect fifth is considered to be the purest doesn't mean it's the best and we sometimes want some of that contrast that can come from a different chord [Music] that said though i am curious to see what a piece would sound like if it did have a chord progression that moved all the way around the circle of fifths now i couldn't actually find an example of this so i thought it would be a great opportunity for me to actually create my own piece that travels all the way around the circle of fifths so i'm going to start on the chord of c and work my way all the way around the circular fifths until i get back to c at the end [Music] do do [Music] what you're probably finding now is even though we started on the chord of c [Music] doesn't particularly feel like the resolution and what i found is when you keep going in fifths on and on and on you completely lose track of which key which note in the key is meant to be your tonic because really when you move by a fifth you really emphasize the note you arrive on which makes it sound a bit like the tonic and if you never build any wider context of other intervals from the scale you just sound like you're changing key forever like every time you land on a new chord it sounds like you have moved key it sounds like we're now in iski but we could just keep on moving are we now in this game it's just very interesting to lose that sense of tonality by playing what should be the most satisfying interval we have [Music] and thank you as always to all of the patrons who make my videos possible including the names you see on screen right now and andre sansdianja andy deakin andrew andrew sussman austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry boomer daley [Music] christopher ryan david bennett's heart david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks eleanor scorchenko eugene leroy fd hodor greg krubowski gilda molotowner james brocklebank hernick kutcher hugo miller max o'keefe melody composer squared melanie schoenert michael vivian nathan lawrence nathaniel park nick cheng paul middleton paul miller peter dunphy richard pride roger clay sean kennedy steve daly stephen lazzaro tim beaker trisha adams tim payne victor levy fiddler flowers vladimir the washington shakespearean festival in fairbanks [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 1,510,068

Keywords: circle of fifths, chord progressions, perfect 5th, explained, music theory, examples, songs that use, chords, beatles, bach, piano

Id: -DQJmicTFGQ

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 24 2022