Circle Of 5th's - Piano Lessons

Piano Lessons.com The #1 Name in Piano Lessons Online The Circle Of 5th’s – Nate Bosch Hi! I’m Nate Bosch of Piano Lessons.com, today I’d like to talk to you about the circle or the cycle of fifths. Now the cycle of fifths is all 12 notes in the chromatic scale. [Demo] So there we have the chromatic scale and they’re arranged in fifths, separated by fifths going up or down from C. Now let me show you, we take C and we go up a bit, we got G up to fifth D, A, E B on the way down, down at fifth F, B flat, E flat, A flat, B flat. Then you’re saying okay, that’s nice, what is it, what is it do for me? Well, two things, as we go up, we can think of each of those notes as representing a key. Now in each key if we have the key of C, it’s based on the C major scale [Demo] It’s all white keys, there’s no sharps or no flats. Now if go up fifth which is just to the right on the circle of fifths we get the G. Now in the key of G, there is one black note. Let’s play the G scale [Demo] So the F is raised so we call that an F sharp. So in the key of G there is one sharp, now on a piece of music they’ll be indicated on the stuff and that’s called a key signature. So the key signature for C is that there’s no sharps, no flats. So let’s first go to the right on the circle of fifths and well go up by from the C, we get G. Now we already saw that G has one sharp which is F sharp. Now if we go up a fifth from that we get D. Now the D major scale has what? Well let’s play it [Demo] There’s an F sharp [Demo] The C sharp and then the D, so two sharps are found in that key. So in C we had no sharps, we went up to fifth we got G, we have one sharp. Now we go up to fifth we got D we have two sharps; F sharp and C sharp. Now if go for fifth from D we get to A and you can probably already guess by the pattern which sharps is going to be three sharps in that key signature in the key of A. So if we play the scale— [Demo] So the F sharp and the C sharp like in the key of D or A, but now we’ve raised the D sharp. Now if you look at that circle of fifths, look at the pattern that starting here, in C there’s no sharp, if we go to G there’s one sharp now it’s the F sharp. Look what’s just to the left of the C, that’s right, an F. Now so far the F sharp, C sharp, G sharp which is found in A, can you guess what the fourth sharp is going to be when we go up to E? You’re right, D sharp. See how that’s working? We can use these circle of fifths to show us exactly what are key signatures are going to look. Now we keep going all the way from E has got four sharp, B has five sharps, F sharp has six sharps and C sharp has seven sharps. Now that’s going to the right on the circle of fifths. Now if we go to the left we start at C again, we go down at perfect fifth. What do we get? We get F. Now let’s play the F major scale. [Demo] So in the F major scale the fourth note is lowered so the B is not a B, it’s a B flat. So we see that well, let’s go to C again, see no sharps no flats the key signature. In F we have one flat, well if we think about what happened going this way up the key board and looking at all the sharps. So if we’ve gone down to fifth for F, if we go another fifth to B flat so F had one flat so B flat is going to have, you’ve got it, two flats; so the B flat and E flat. [Demo] Now we go down another fifth we get E flat, so in the key of E flat there is three flats. Now if you look at how the notes are arranged in that circle of fifths that same pattern we saw for the sharps, what was telling you what notes were the B sharps going up, you can find that same pattern for the flat going back down the other way. So as we keep going down, A flat has four flats, D flat has five flats, G flat has six flats and C flat which looks like B has seven flats. So hopefully that gives you an idea of what the circle of fifths is and if you look at it you can help you identify in a nut shell key signatures, what key you’re playing in so somebody says to; hey we’re going to play this song in A, you know if you got that circle of fifths, you know right of the top A has three sharps in it and those three sharps are going to be C sharp, F sharp, G sharp. And as you get familiar with those and you really start to memorize how that works you can snap to it quickly, somebody says hey we’re going to play an E flat, you know three flats or we’re going to play an F sharp during the E, there’re six sharp notes in there but then you understand it. So there you have the circle of fifths.