| 6. | CIRCLE OF FIFTHS | |||||||||||||||||||
| COUNT BY FIVES, THEN FLAT | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Notes In All Major Keys Important Chords All Major Keys Chord Formulas Maj, Min, Dim, Aug Chords 7th Chords: Dominant, Maj, Min 5th, Sus 2nd, Sus 4th Chords Chord Progressions More Chord Progressions |
The circle of fifths is a way of remembering which keys have which flats and sharps in them. One way to do it is as follows.
First, go through the notes in the key of C, counting five at a time. Remember that the key of C has no flats and no sharps. |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
Its notes are C – D – E – F – G – A – B. C is the root, D the second, E the third, F the fourth, G the fifth, A the sixth, and B the seventh. First, go to the fifth of C – this is G. So this is the next key. Flat G, get F#. This means the key of G has one sharp (F#). Staying in the key of C, go forward to the fifth assuming G is the root. Counting this way we get G – A – B – C – D . So the next key is D. Flat D, get C#. So the key of D has two sharps – the previous one (F#) from the key of G, plus the new one (C#).
Next, count five more notes, in the key of C, from D. This gives us D – E – F – G – A. This means the next key is A. Flat A, get G#. This means the key of A has one more sharp (G#) in addition to the two already found (C# and F#). Count five more notes, in the key of C, from A. This gives us A – B – C – D – E. This means the next key is E. Flat E, get D#. This means the key of E has one more sharp (D#) in addition to the three already found (C#, F#, G#). Count five more notes, in the key of C, from E. This gives us E – F – G – A – B. So the next key is B. Flat B, get A#. This means the key of B has one more sharp (A#) in addition to the four already found (C#, F#, G#, D#). Table 11A summarizes the results. Starting with C, we count five notes to get G. This is the first key. We flat the G (thereby getting F#); that is the sharp we add. We count five more from G (which is D); that gives us the second key. We flat the D, to get C#; that is the sharp we add. Since we had F# before, we now have two sharps – F# and C#. We count five more, getting A; we flat that to get G# and add that to the two previous sharps. We repeat the process to get the keys of E and B. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| Table 11A. Circle Of Fifths For Sharped Keys. | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
To get keys with flats, go backward. Start with C, then the fifth note back is F – we can count forward F – G – A – B – C. So F is the first flatted key. Using F as the first note, go back five – that is B (B – C – D – E – F). Since we’re now in flatted keys, convert it to a flat to get Bb. The Bb goes with the previous key of F, not the current one. So the key of F has one flat, Bb. That's also the name of the next key (not B, but Bb); go back five notes (with B as the first); that gives E. Make that a flat, get Eb. So the key of Bb has the Eb, along with the previous Bb. Go back another five notes from E to get A; so the next key is Ab. The Ab goes with the previous key of Eb. So Eb has the Bb, the Eb, and the Ab. Going back another five notes from A, we have D; the next key is Db. The Db goes with the previous key of Ab; so Ab has Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db. Go back another five notes from D to get G; so the next key is Gb. The Gb goes with the previous key of Db. So Db has Bb, Eb, Ab, and Gb. We also know that the current key of Gb has the same five flats because there can't be any more. The results are shown in Table 11B. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| Table 11B. Circle Of Fifths For Flatted Keys. | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Note that (from Table 11A) that the key of G is "adjacent" to the key of C (it has one more sharp than C). Then D is adjacent to G (it has one more sharp than D); A is adjacent to D, E is adjacent to A, and B is adjacent to E. Similarly, the key of F can be considered adjacent to the key of C, since it has one more flat. Then the key of Bb is adjacent to F, the key of Eb is adjacent to the key of Bb, Ab is adjacent to Eb, Db is adjacent to Ab, and Gb is adjacent to Db. So we can re-order the information in Table 2 to that shown in Table 2A. We can also re-order the information in Table 9 to that in Table 9A, and that in Table 10 to that in Table 10A. |
||||||||||||||||||||