Getting Comfortable with the Circle of Fifths

Lesson 3 - The Circle of Fifths  So far we've looked at what pitch is and how we use eleven pitches plus the octave to build the musical alphabet or chromatic scale which contains all the pitches or notes we use in our music. Now we're about to get into an extremely important concept that we'll change the way you look at scales, chords and everything! I'm talking about, the circle of fifths.  This is perhaps the most known, common, well known aspect of theory out there next to scales. Yet, this is so poorly taught, confusing to understand if not taught in a simple manner and most people don't even get what the COF(Circle of fifths) is even for. Until now... :D

Basically, the circle of fifths or COF, is a device in which we musicians can logically structure the whole musical alphabet or chromatic scale into a way that makes sense. Instead of grouping the pitches by stacking them right next to each other, they are spread out. If can be used to voice lead, create smooth chord changes, and even better, it can allow you to create any scale and understand how the notes of that scale work with each other EFFORTLESSLY! Well, may'be not effortless but it's more of a system that works like: If you know the COF well and how to use it, it takes care of sooo many aspects of theory. That's why I teach it on lesson 3 and not on lesson 45 like some people. In order to understand te COF though, we need to first know what a fifth is.

A perfect fifth (which is a perfect interval like the Octave), is a distance of seven semitones. This means, to get a fifth, we count up seven semitones in the chromatic scale. So, if we want a fifth from say, I dunno, A!
Then we start at A, and count:  A# B C C# D D# E, since E is on seven, E is a fifth from A! Don't get caught up in the newbie mistake of counting A as 1, A is zero, when you get to seven, you have arrived at a perfect fifth! We can do it with C too, C is zero, then 1Db, 2D, 3Eb, 4E, 5F, 6Gb... and seven makes G! So G is a perfect fifth or just fifth from C.  Easy enough. Although we can do this all day, it's very slow and inefficient compared to just memorizing the COF by heart. The entire circle of fifths (With sharps) is: CGDAEBF#C#G#D#A#Fand back to C making it a circle.

Or you could always just look at the pretty picture down there:

This circle is SO important and we will make extensive use of it in the following lessons. Also, you need to be able to know this COF forward and backwards because you will need to be able to move in both directions. Even better is if you know it well enough to skip around such as A# comes after G# if you skip D# ect...  Another thing is that if you know the COF, you don't have to count seven semitones everytime you want to play a fifth from something, you'll already know what it is.

Rules about the Circle of Fifths

When the same musical is played consectively, you will eventually end up back where you started. If might be in a different octave but you will end up on the same letter name. Such as if we played a fifth from C which is G, then D then A then E then B then F# then C# then G# then D# then A# then F then C again. this can be done with any interval but it's a good logic to remember about musical intervals.This is why it's called a CIRCLE or in some places, CYCLE, same thing really.

The circle can also move clockwise or counter-clockwise, it doesn't matter. We'll learn in the upcoming lessons which way you go for what purpose.

ASSIGMENT:
                     Learn the whole circle of fifths very well.
                     Cough *  Learn to play fifths on you're instrument... might be a good idea. ;)
                   
Once you have a good grasp on the COF, we can learn about scales:
   On to:  Building Scales with the Circle of Fifths