Why You Need to Learn Circle of Fifths Right Now

the circular fifs may sound like an ancient Brotherhood deviced at King Arthur's round table but actually it's an incredibly powerful tool that can help any musician even if they don't know any music theory it will show you how to build chords note by note it will show you how to put those chords together into progressions that are going to work really well and it can also show you how to write killer Melodies this is what it looks like and it might seem a bit intimidating but don't worry I'm going to break it down and it's all going to make sense in a couple of minutes well we can see it's divided up into 12 slices or segments just like a clock face the letters in the dark ring are the major keys and these lowercase letters in the inner ring are the minor keys so let's quickly touch upon those basics in most western music using the major and minor keys there are seven notes in each scale the major Keys sound happy and the minor Keys sound a bit sad C major is the simplest of keys because it just uses the white notes and doesn't have any sharps or flats 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and then up to the octave which is the first note again now let's listen to the scale of C minor so it sounds much sadder now these minor keys in the Inner Circle are the corresponding relative keys of the major keys that are in the Outer Circle so what do I mean by that well it just means that they share the same key signature the key signature being the thing that tells you how many sharps or flats are in a particular key so we already know that c major only has white notes with no sharps or flats and we can see as a minor is in the corresponding Inner Circle that that also has no sharps or flats so here's C major again which uses none of the black notes and here's a minor which also uses no black notes and you can see in this outer ring here there are all these different numbers next to these little symbols this meaning a sharp and this signifying a flat in simple terms a sharp is played one half step or semmit tone above the note that's written whilst a flat is played one half step or One semmit Tone below the note that is written for example an F is one half step above the f which is this black note here similarly an E flat would be one half step or semitone below the E which would be this black note here now if we count round clockwise we can see that c major has no sharps or flats G major has one sharp D major has two sharps a major has three Sharps E major has four sharps and so on and when we get to this point we can see that B major has five Sharps fshp major has six Sharps and C Shar major has seven Sharps and if we go around counterclockwise from the top we can see that F major has one one flat B flat major has two Flats E flat major has three flats and so on now all this talk of Sharps and flats can be a little confusing so let's have a look at them in action we've already looked at C major which we know has no sharps or flats and we can see there are no sharp or flat symbols in this scale but what if we choose a different scale from the circle of fifths like a flat major well the circle of fifths tell us that there are four flats in this key or scale and we can see here that's shown en Ableton so we've got the a flat which is the root note then we also have a B flat then we have a d flat and an E flat now it's called the circle of fifths because of the way it's put together for example in C major the fifth note in that scale is G in G major the fifth note of that scale is D and so on and that's where it gets its name from and that's all well and good but how is that useful for actually making music well there are four ways in which we can use the circle of fifths to help us write music the first is to read these letters as notes so that's c g and that's D and so on and this is useful because then we can work out which notes in particular chords really easily for a major chord you select your root note in this case C and then we select the two notes one place clockwise on the circle so in this instance we pick the E from the inner circle and the G from the Outer Circle so our C major chord is c e and G following this formula that means the chord of G major would be G one place clockwise that's the B and the D so the chord of D major would be d f and a and so on so that's major chords but how do we work out minor chords well first we pick the root note from the inner circle cuz they're our minors then we pick the corresponding outer ring note from that same segment then we go around one clockwise place and choose the inner note from there so for the example of G minor we pick the G then we pick the B flat from the outer ring and then we pick the D from the next place around in the inner ring so now let's test that theory by choosing somewhere else say we want to work out the chord for a Shar minor so we choose a Shar from the inner circle then we choose the corresponding note in the Outer Circle which is C Shar then we go one place clockwise around and choose the note from the inner circle in this instance F and there we have the chord of AAR minor so here are two quick diagrams on the left we've got the formula for working out major chords and on the right we've got the formula for working out minor chords the second way to use the circle of fifths and probably the most powerful is to read these letters as the root notes of chords and this is very helpful when it comes to working out chord progressions allow me to show you now circle of fifths core progressions are generally considered very harmonically strong and it's a quick way to come up with progressions that sound good everywhere so C on the wheel will be the chord of C major now if we go one place around we've got the G which would be the chord of G major now that is the dominant chord of the scale of C major and the dominant chord that is the one played with the fifth as the root note and hence the circle of fifths is always very strong and it's always going to want to lead us back to hitting that route or or tonic cord again root and tonic meaning the same thing but rather than get bogged down with this terminology the easiest thing to do with the circle of fifths is when you choose your root chord of your progression in this instance C major you can use the chord either one place counterclockwise or one place clockwise in your progression and it's always going to sound good now if you end on the chord one place clockwise from it as I just mentioned that's the dominant chord and that can be a nice way to lead back into the beginning of your progression but you don't have to use them in that order because it also works if you go from the C to the G to the F so let's call those sister chords cuz they're right next to the main one now if we look underneath in the Inner Circle we've got these three chords as well underneath each of those so in this example it's the D Minor the a minor and the E minor and let's call these cousin chords you can throw these into your progression too and it's going to spice things up and make it sound good and just like sisters and cousins the cousins are less closely related so you'll probably want to use fewer of them in your progression compared to the sister cords so let's throw in a couple of those cousin chords we'll start on the C and then the D Minor then the a minor then the F major sounding great let's try a different combination we'll start with C major a minor E minor and the dominant the G major cool so let's try another example let's choose the chord of E flat major so our sister chords are going to be the B flat major which will be the dominant cuz it's one place clockwise and we've got the a flat major as well which is one place counterclockwise then our three cousin chords are the F minor the C minor and the G minor so let's listen to a couple of combinations of these chords we'll start with the E flat major then we'll go to the B flat major and then the a flat major which sounds good right but let's throw in a couple of other ones so we'll start with the E flat major again then the C minor F minor and then the a flat major and the beauty of these family chords is you don't even need to use that root chord that you started with if you don't want to as long as you're staying within the family chords so if we base our family around C major again for Simplicity now let's build that progression without using this C major chord so I think we're going to start on F major and let's just jam out some of these other chords in the family and avoid C major see that's cool such a great tool and it's as simple as that when it comes to using the circle of fists for core progressions the Third Way for using the circle of fifths to write music is by working out the relative Keys now this isn't so important with electronic dance music but sometimes in a pop track or more particularly things like Rock You might want to change the key for a middle eight section or something like that so really quickly here's how you do it you just choose the corresponding key from the inner circle to the Outer Circle for example C major doesn't have any flats or Sharps the relative key of C major is a minor so it's an easy key change to make and it works the opposite way as well for instance your track could be written in a minor but then for the middle L8 section perhaps you want want to change it to C major okay so the fourth way in which we can use the circle of fifths is for writing Melodies now we know about making a family of chords if we take that initial family chord and then just count four places clockwise on the circle of fifths so for C major that's going to be the C the G the D the A and the E if we are playing chords from with our chord family those notes are going to sound great in any order as a Melody so let's listen to an example of that so I'm going to program in some of the c major chords from the family for our progression and then I'm going to jam along with our par notes and see how it sounds so we've got the D minor chord then the a minor then the c major and then up to the dominant the G major Let's Jam that's just using our power notes nice sounding pretty cool huh so now let's pick some random different different chord family and see if this technique still works for this example I'm going to pick the chord family of C major which means our power notes are going to be C Shar a flat E flat B flat and the F like [Music] so so I've programmed in some chords from that chord family and let's just Jam along using these par notes [Music] still sounds great now it's a great starting point for writing chord progressions but there were five chord progressions you would have heard in countless songs and you probably don't even realize it in my opinion every music producer needs to know them as they are incredibly powerful to use in any genre of music so I've put them together in a video right here that's going to be itial to watch if you really want to nail your core progression skills if you enjoyed this video hit like consider subscribing to my channel thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you over at this next [Music] video

Channel: EDM Tips

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Keywords: how to use circle of fifths to write songs, how to read circle of fifths for beginners, how to learn circle of fifths music theory, circle of fifths explained, music theory, circle of 5ths, circle of fifths chord progression, music theory for beginners, music production, made easy, borrowed chords, chord theory, advanced music theory, easy music theory, chord tones, learn circle of 5ths, circle of fifths made clear, edm tips

Id: wRg-oj74TsI

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024