The Secret of the Circle of 5ths | Learn all 12 Major Keys

The Circle of 5ths is as old as western music itself. It's also the source of a lot of frustration from traditional piano students who never really understood how it works. Today, I want to share with you an important concept about the circle of 4ths.

Wait a minute. Circle of 4ths? Before you may ask, it's not an entirely different circle. It's simply the circle of 5ths in reverse. So what would be the purpose of recognizing the circle of 5ths in reverse. I'm glad you asked.

In another articles, we looked at learning the 12 Major keys of music from visual characteristics and lettered note names that can make them easier to understand and retain.

I'm often asked, what is the best order or sequence to learn Major keys? Of course you can learn them in any order. However, some sequences may be more effective than others.

You can utilize the circle of 5ths to study/learn Major keys of music. If you move clockwise around the circle, you're studying them in a pattern of 5th intervals.But moving counter-clockwise will provide you a much more useful way to learn your Major keys. You're then moving in a pattern of 4th intervals which refers to the circle as 4ths.

So what's the significance of moving in 4th intervals? Music moves in 4ths. I'm of course talking about the chord progressions you find in songs. Look at the top of the circle and move counter-clockwise (in 4ths) and you'll progress to F, B flat, E flat, etc.

Now look at a chord chart or lead sheet and you will find that regardless of the key it's in, the harmony progresses in 4ths.

You can see from the examples above that B flat leads to E flat to A flat and so on. Just note that chord progressions don't contain 4th movements 100 percent of the time. It's just that these 4th chord patterns are prevalent in music for a very good reason.

That reason is that these chords are related to one another and in turn, the keys of music that they represent are also related.

Let me put it like this. The C Major triad represents the key of C Major.

Now moving one key counter-clockwise you have the F Major triad which represents the key of F Major.

Look at the contrast of these two keys. How are they different?

Well obviously they have a different sequence of notes and they're differentiated by B and B flat.

But it's their similarities that make them related to one another. They both contain the same 6 out of 7 notes only separated by one note (B and B flat). As you move around the circle, each subsequent key of music becomes differentiated by only one note.

The simplest way to determine this differentiating note is to just find the note that's a whole step below the tonic note.

For example,

C is the tonic note of C Major.

A whole step (2 notes) below C is B flat.

So B flat is the only note that differentiates C from F.

As you progress around the circle of 4ths, just look at the note that's a whole step below the tonic to find that one note that's different from the previous key.  This works works with every key around the circle.