Who invented circle of fifths

If you go counter-clockwise on the circle you will see the notes go in ascending perfect fourths. From C, a perfect fourth above is F. The notes go in 4ths all the way around the circle when moving counter-clockwise.

It will be quite useful for you to memorize the sequence of note names in both fifths and fourths. For starters, bassists play lots of fifths. Knowing the fifth above any note will come in handy. Also, you will see many chord progressions move in fourths. And, it will make memorizing keys and key signatures easier, too. Learn to recite the notes on the circle from memory.

Be able to start on any note not just C and go all the way around the circle in both directions. This is something you can practice in your head without your bass.

Since there are 12 chromatic keys, we can discuss the positions of the keys as where they would appear on a clockface.

At the 12 o'clock position, we see "C" in the large red circle and in the smaller pink circle, we see "a". Therefore "C" is a C major and "a" is a minor. You will note that below the a circle, it reads "0 flats, 0 sharps. When a major and a minor key share the same key signature, they are called "relative keys.

Moving from the 12 o'clock position to the 1 o'clock position, we move up an interval of a perfect fifth , from C a to G e. Each time we move up on "hour" on the circle in the clockwise, we add a sharp to or remove a flat from the key signature. So at "C", there are no flats or sharps and at "G", we have one sharp and "D" has two. By the time we reach the 5 o'clock position of "B", we have five sharps. Looking at a piano key graphic below, you can see the progression by fifths up the piano keyboard spans nearly all 88 keys.

For simplicity's sake, our graphic below shows the flatted version of the enharmonic notes only. So the first relationship that the Circle of Fifths shows is ascending perfect fifths. Now if we start at C and move around the circle counter-clockwise, we move by up by perfect fourths or down by perfect fifths. Now just as we added a sharp or removed a flat with each key signature as we moved around the circle in the clockwise direction, we add a flat or remove a sharp with each successive key signature in the counter-clockwise direction.

So our 12 o'clock key of C has no flats or sharps, its neighbor in the counter-clockwise direction is F which has one flat. When we discuss harmony and chords, we will discuss the fourth and fifth relationships in the circle further. Another interval that is clearly illustrated on the circle is the tritone. A tritone is the exact middle of an octave, falling between the perfect fifth and perfect fourth.

The tritone is depicted on the circle b the pitch that is exactly across the circle from it. If you are familiar with color theory, you will also notice that the tritone relationship is illustrated by complimentary colors. There are many other interval and harmonic relationships that are illustrated on the circle that we will not discuss right now but will do so at a later date when we cover intervals and diatonic in the key chords in detail.

Music is taught on the basis that there are 12 pitches per octave, 12 major keys and 12 minor keys. And though keys are clearly different in the way they interact with instruments, voices and ears, all keys are theoretically equivalent and there is certainly no one key that is special. By naming seven pitches with the letters A to G, and treating all other pitches as modifications of those seven, our notation makes one tonality — C major — look special. Because all pitches other than A to G must be notated with sharps and flats, we soon encounter pitches where there is a notational choice: A or Bb?

F or Gb? In any given context, does it matter whether we write Bb or A? Yes, but mainly because it is helpful to have some rules to keep written music intelligible. One rule is to use each letter-name and thus, each stave position exactly once in each seven-note scale.

In an A major scale, we agree to call its third degree C rather than Db or, lord help us, B. Much of what is taught as music theory is really a set of rules for operating in a tone, all-keys-are-equal world, while using a notation which seems to describe a completely different universe.

Happy days. If you can see past the notational fog of sharps and flats, the circle of fifths is telling us something fundamental about Western music. Whatever major scale you start with, you can always sharpen the fourth or flatten the seventh to make another major scale. It is this that allows us to arrange 12 major scales in a circle. Not all scales have this property. Take a melodic minor scale, for example. There is no way you can alter a single tone and still have a melodic minor scale.

The circle of fifths, as a map of tonalities, provides a systematic way of doing this. For scales, licks or complete tunes, stepping around the circle either clockwise or anticlockwise can be helpful. Moving in fifths, up or down, ensures that changes in the tonal palette the key signature, basically are as gradual as possible.

On the piano, your hands will be making shapes which change only gradually as you progress through the keys. That means moving down by whole steps, equivalent to two fifths at a time. Basically this is the route tunes take when they want to get home in a hurry, with no harmonic fuss. In fact you have probably got a book, an app or a teacher telling you to cycle through technical exercises in other patterns such as minor thirds, and in random patterns so you are ready for anything.

Tessitura Pro, from mDecks Music , makes a pretty thorough job of this. Choose a structure, and the app can generate a variety of practice exercises, from simple scales and arpeggios to complex patterns. Be aware that the notes shown on the circle are actual notes, not keys or tonalities.

The screenshot shows the five notes which make up the C minor pentatonic scale, and an exercise generated from them. Note that we are no longer using the circle as a chart of tonalities. We are tracking root movement.

The diagram above shows how circle-of-fifths progressions operate within a single key, or within a pair of relative major and minor keys. The complete sequence cycles through the full range of diatonic chord qualities. Autumn Leaves , normally regarded as a minor tune, starts with a major cadence D-7, G7, Cmaj7 before moving into the minor part of the cycle B-7b5, E7, A In the B section of the tune, the cadences come in reverse order, minor leading into major, giving the whole section a major feel.

Notice how the chord quality changes progressively during the in-key circle-of-fifths progressions of Autumn Leaves. If you like to think in modes, these progressions go through all seven diatonic modes, from the darkest locrian to the brightest lydian , and then back to locrian. Learn more.

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