Circle Of Fifths Diagram
Blank Circle Of Fifths Diagram

This tutorial is a companion resource of the Interactive Circle Of Fifths Tool , a music learning software available on this site. The Circle Of Fifths , also called Cof , was invented in the 1670s by Nikolai Diletskii in his 'Grammatika'; this incredible device embeds all the music theory you need to know for doing a lot of funny things.

The circle of fifths can seem a little overwhelming at first, but you will soon realize how easy it really is to understand! Deciphering the Circle The circle of fifths is the relationship among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys. The circle of fifths Infographic The circle of fifths is a visual representation of the keys you hear in music. Starting at the top with the key of C major. The circle is split between the sharps (right side) and flats (left side) we encounter as we travel around it. PLAY the relative minor Circle of Fifths on the piano. UMT Tip: Always write the Circle of Fifths on the Circle of Fifths Theory Worksheets in the same order. Circle of Fifths Theory Worksheets - UMT Activity #2 – Game: Beat the Clock. Focused repetition is the key to confidence! To make focused repetition fun, turn it into a game! The circle of fifths is a diagram used in music theory that helps students memorize and understand the 24 major and minor keys used in music, key relationships, and many chord relationships. Logically, this diagram is pretty fascinating. It ties together many common relationships found in music.

Indeed, at the end of this tutorial, you'll be able to use the Circle of Fifths to:

Identify sharps and flats for each music key
Know the chords that belong to a key
Create chord progressions
Modulate to other keys
Construct chords of different types

Don't feel overwhelmed by such amount of information, the Circle of Fifths makes it easy to understand and master the tasks listed above.

You may want to open the Interactive Circle Of Fifths on a separate page so that you can follow this tutorial and experiment the concepts with the tool.

Are you ready?

Let's unveil the hidden mysteries of the Circle Of Fifths!

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Table Of Contents

These maps show you the tones in a chord all along the fretboard. They are incredibly helpful because allow you to:

Create new voicings on the fly, across all the neck
Improvise targeting the right notes
Unlock the fretboard and expand the CAGED system.

In the new ebook, Chords Domination, you'll find the fretboard tones maps for 44 different qualities of chords. Check it out:

Introduction

Circle Of Fifths Diagram

The Circle of Fifths is a geometric representation of how the 12 notes of the chromatic scale relate to one another. If you look closely at the diagram you will see each note is a Perfect Fifth (seven semitones, or seven frets on the fretboard) higher than the next (going clockwise).

Not sure what is a Perfect Fifth? Then, before going forward, you should take a look at our tutorial on music intervals . It will explain what intervals are and how to find them on the fretboard.

The G is a fifth away from the C in the major scale. Going clockwise on the Circle of Fifths the next note will always be a fifth away. Now if we move counterclockwise on the Circle of Fifths, we are a fourth away, F is the fourth note of the C major scale.

So our clockwise sequence is:

C
G
D
A
E
B
F#
C#
Ab
Eb
Bb
F
C

As always music theory can quickly get a little garbled which is why the Circle of Fifths is so very helpful. It allows you to quickly see how each note in the scale relates to the next , and how it all falls into a convenient loop or circle.

How To Memorize the Circle Of Fifths: Memory Trick for Guitar Players

Now here's a little trick for memorizing the Circle of Fifths with the help of the guitar fretboard.

If you know your guitar notes names , it will be easy to follow the Cof (Circle of Fifths) right on the neck. Pmd file opener online. We start from the C at the 3rd fret of the A string , and we go up by one Perfect Fifth, note after note. With the help of fretboard octaves (again, if you don't know what octaves are, please go to the music intervals tutorial) our Circle Of Fifths can be laid out horizontally in the pattern shown here below:

No need to memorize the Circle of Fifths if you know your fretboard notes!

Awesome! We see that it's enough to learn this fretboard pattern for knowing the sequence of the notes in the Cof!

Just don’t forget that when we move:

clockwise (left to right on the fretboard pattern), we are moving in fifths,
counterclockwise , we are moving in fourths (right to left on the fretboard pattern)

Before approaching sharps and flats, We need to clarify what enharmonics are. If you are already familiar with the subject, feel free to skip this section.

In western music, there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, each one a semitone away from each other. On your guitar, each fret represents one of these notes and every fret is one semitone. These notes in the chromatic scale are;

C
C#/Db
D
D#/Eb
E
F
F#/Gb
G
G#/Ab
A
A#/Bb
B
and then back to C

The notes with a slash are known as enharmonic notes , and they are the same pitch as each other. For example, C# is enharmonically equivalent to Db they are just spelled differently. Depending on which key you are in will determine the spelling.

If you are in the key of E then you will spell the note C#, if in the key of Ab than you will spell the note as Db.

Now, of course, this can cause some immediate confusion, which is why we have the Circle of Fifths.

How to use the Circle of Fifths to organize music keys

The Circle of Fifths packs an awful lot of data into a small circle. On the outside are the names of the major keys while on the inside are the names of the minor keys.

As we mentioned above the key of G is five steps above the key of C, and just as well the key of Em is five steps above the key of Am. (If you use your fingers to count each note alphabetically you will see they each interval adds up to five).

The CoF also will denote how many sharps or flats are in each key. The sharps are on the right side and the flats on the left. Starting at the top with C we have no sharps or flats as there are none in the C major scale.

From there each fifth adds another sharp, until we reach the bottom and then it goes backwards with flats until we come back to C again.

Now you will notice at the bottom of the CoF that some keys have different spellings and can either be denoted with sharps or flats.

Remember from above that these are enharmonically equivalent it just depends on which the composer wishes to use. If you are not sure how many sharps the Key of B has, well just count from the beginning of the CoF (excluding the natural key of C) and you will have five sharps.

If you want to know how many flats are in the enharmonic equivalent of B, which is Cb, well count backwards and you will get 7 flats.

By knowing the number (if any) of sharps or flats, we will have the key signature readily available by the CoF. (As you read on kee