Circle of fifths
Steve Rieck: In this warm up podcast we are going to talk about the circle of fifths and if you have learned major scales and you basically know the notes on the fretboard or you at least know how to find the notes on the fretboard whether or that's fast or slow. Then this podcast is really going to help you put the pieces together in terms of learning all twelve major scales. That's something that every musician really needs to learn to take music theory at all.
Seriously anything you learn in the music theory, I think, ultimately depends one way or another on knowing your major scales. You learn some exotic scales and the notes of some exotic chord. It really is going to be very confusing without knowing the notes of each of the twelve major scales. So that's really what I am going to use this podcast to help demonstrate today and I am going to give you a very slow methodical exercise to get that information on to your fingers and get it memorized as well.
So the first thing we are going to do is just play basic C major scale here on the second position and there is your C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C and actually before we get started as like I said before there has been notes on the fretboard are confusing to you. If you don't have that under control definitely go and check out our notes in the fretboard tutorial in the beginner podcast before you get started and so anyway the C Major scales I just demonstrated, has no sharps and flats in it.
The essence of what we are going to be doing today is really kind of seeing those scales instead of seeing it as a eight notes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, seeing it really more as two groupings of four notes one, two, three, four and five, six, seven, eight. So we have sort of lower half of the scale and the upper half and there are terms for those they call that it tetra chord a grouping of four notes is called the tetra chord.
So if I start on the tonic of the scale which is C that's the tonic tetra chord of the C scale and fifth note of the scale is called dominant. So this one, the four group notes are starting on the fifth of the scales called the dominant tetra chord, tonic tetra chord, anyway a lot of names for a simple concept and it's going to be important.
So what we are going to do to learn the circle of fifth is identify the fifth note of each scale and work our way through all twelve keys. So if I started on the C scale I found the fifth note of that C scale which is G. G, A, B, C could be the first tetra chord the first half of the new scale. The G scale, G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. So I got G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G and notice how the G scale has one F# in it.
If you are confused why the G scale has a F# in it. You need to go back and study major scale. So those are whole steps and half step it goes whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step. This sort of out of the range of this podcast and we definitely has been over that in earlier podcast. So make sure you are clear on that.
So anyway if I started on the G that G was fifth fret of the four string if I just started on the same G here at the tenth fret of the fifth string that's G as well. Effectively I played the exact same pattern that I played over here for C, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G for the G scale. Notice how of course I am saying the notes out loud, that's maybe the most important thing of this whole exercise is to slow down and count and say all the notes out loud.
I can't guarantee you its going to be necessarily easy or fun to play through all twelve of these scales and get it all down. But if you do it a little bit everyday definitely will come together you will learn all your twelve major scales. You will know all the notes you will notes on the fretboard and everything else you do in music theory beyond that point is going to be a whole lot easier.
So the fifth note of the G scale is D, so if started on the D down here at the fifth fret of fifth string, D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D. So each as we go up, we are noticing those seventh not here with the sharp keys as our new sharp. So D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D. Same scale pattern in terms of the fingering. So now if I start on the fifth note of the D scale which is A to find A over here at the 12th fret of the fifth string, A, B, C, D, E, F# G, A. The fifth note of the A scale is E. E is down here on the seventh fret on the fifth string. E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E and then the fifth note of the E scale is B, down here at the second fret B, B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#, B.
So that's the B Major scale and now as we get to the fifth note of the B scale that's a F#. So we sort of made it through the first keys so far C, G, D, A, E and B. Anyway F# is the fifth note of the B scale. F# is here on the ninth fret of the fifth string. So of course I am about to play the same pattern, but this time what I am going to do is switch the inharmonic spelling of these notes and that sounds like a lot. What I am actually going to just do is rather than calling this F# I am now going to call this G Flat and count it from G flat, this is same note to your ear it is just a new key in terms of the scales. We were calling it G flat rather than F#.
G flat, A flat, B flat, C flat, you may have learned early in note spelling that you don't really have heard of things as C Flat, F flat, E# or B#. Well that's actually not true that's when you get into these more advance scales major scales where you have a lot of flats or sharps you will find situation where instead of calling this note to B you called the C Flat. So why not just go G flat, A flat, B flat, B, D flat, because you want to basically have one of the each of the seven letters spelled in each scale.
So you get G flat, A flat, E flat, then in this case C flat D flat E flat F G flat and so listen to back to that and suppose we instead of calling the G flat actually called F#, couldn't we just say it's F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#, E#, F# and again you could also called an F# scale. So in this case this scale is basically referred to by different names G Flat or the F# major scale.
Okay and then moving on, so if this is G flat, D flat is the fifth note of that scale. D flat is down here at the fourth fret of the fifth string so we get a D flat, E flat, F, G flat, A Flat, B flat, C, D Flat. Now we have got five flats in that key. D Flat, A Flat, F G flat, A flat, B flat, C, D flat. So that's a lot of flats. Remember how before we had sharps in our major scale we were in the sharp keys at this point, we sort of transition to the flat keys.
We have five flats in this scale and progressively we are going to now losing flats until we get back to the key and see that had no sharps and flats in it. So the fifth over this scale is A Flat up here on the 11th fret A flat, D Flat, C, D flat, E flat, F, G, A flat. Four flats in that scale and then the fifth of note of that is E flat, to the E flat major scale. Here is at the sixth fret.
So you get E flat, F, G, A flat, B flat, C, D, E flat and so that's I have got three flats in it. Now we are going to go to the B flat and fifth note of the E flat scale is B flat. So here we on the 13th fret of the fifth string D flat, C, D, E Flat, F, G, A, B Flat and then down to F at this is the fifth note of the B flat scale. So F is down here at the eight fret, fifth string.
Now we have only got one flat in this key F, G, A, B flat, C, D, E, F and then finally the fifth note of the F scale here is C and of course that's where we began back to the C scale. So just kind of go through that one more time. This is something I am just going to play through these relatively quickly and name the scales but again this is something that if you are learning of these names of the names of these scales you absolutely must say the names of the notes I have got slowly. That's the whole secret of this.
So we get C the C scale to the G scale to the D scale to the A scale to the E scale to the B scale to the F# or the G flat scale, to the D flat scale, to the A flat scale, to the E flat scale, to the B flat scale. To the F scale and finally back to the C scale. So each of th
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