free learning tool for the circle of fifths

[circleoffifths]

Hello everyone,

as I had to learn the circle of fifths myself lately I wondered if there are any free learning tools around on the net. I didn't find one and programmed one myself. Please take a look here and tell your students about it, in case you like it

www.circle-of-fifths.net

Suggestions are of course most welcome
Yours, Jan

[stevel]

Originally Posted by circleoffifths

Hello everyone,

as I had to learn the circle of fifths myself lately I wondered if there are any free learning tools around on the net. I didn't find one and programmed one myself. Please take a look here and tell your students about it, in case you like it

www.circle-of-fifths.net

Suggestions are of course most welcome
Yours, Jan

Not so easy to find Jan - page could be a little more obvious. But Jan's #1 observation is perfect, memorize it. But read on for a bit of an alternate view:

If you can count to 5, the circle of 5ths is easy to figure out.

C major has no sharps or flats in its key signature.
If you count up to the 5th note of a C major scale, you get G. Every time you count UP to the 5th of a scale, that becomes the new key and you ADD one sharp to the key signature.

Thus G major has one sharp.

If you count up to G's 5th note, you get D, and that ADDS one more sharp, so the key of D has two sharps.

The sharps are always added to the key signature in the same order - BY FIFTHS!!!. The first sharp is F#. Thus the next sharp added is C# (C is up a 5th from F). The order that sharps are added are F C G D A E B (and that's all 7 notes. So for keys:
C = 0
G = 1 = F#
D = 2 = F# and C#
A = 3 = F#, C# and G#
and so on.

If you want to work DOWN, you have to do everything opposite.

Count DOWN 5 from C - it's F. Thus the key of F SUBTRACTS one sharp, which is the same as ADDING one flat. Therefore the key of F has one flat.

Flats also always get added in FIFTHS, and their order happens to be exactly the opposite of sharps, so instead of
F C G D A E B, you have:
B E A D G C F.

Since both of these start at "0" with C, the first accidental above represents the first key a 5th away from C.

So what's the key signature for a key that's THREE 5ths below C? THREE flats of course. What's the key signature for a key that's FIVE 5ths above C? FIVE sharps of course!

Now figuring out what's five 5ths above C is pretty cumbersome.

You can use the "piano teacher" trick: For sharp keys, the name of the key is one half-step above the last sharp. So a key 5 5ths above C has the sharps F C G D A - and the note a half-step above the last sharp, A#, is B - B is 5 5ths above C.

For flats, you take the name of the PREVIOUS Flat in the series. What key has THREE flats? It's the name of flat number TWO - Eb.

But what drives me crazy about this whole thing is, that people are looking for shortcuts in the first place. You know what? Screw that. MEMORIZE IT!!! (with which Jan obviously agrees).

Aren't you going to be a musician? If so, wouldn't you like to at least be a DECENT musician? MEMORIZE the friggin Circle of 5ths!

You memorized your multiplication tables didn't you? And you were taught HOW to figure it out if you hadn't memorized it. Obviously, you can't memorize an infinte number of number combinations, so you have to know HOW to calculate those you can't memorize.

What I showed above was HOW to calculate when you don't know the answer (and there are many other ways to do this too) - if you haven't memorized your Co5ths.

But there's only 15 keys for goodness' sake! Memorize the stupid things. It's easy if you keep in mind a couple of things:
1. There is one, and only one of each number of sharps or flats - thus there is only one key with 3 sharps, and only one key with 5 flats.
2. There are no keys with BOTH sharps and flats, they either have sharps OR flats, not both. This means if the key is named "X#" it CAN NOT have flats in its key signaure, etc.
3. There is one, and only one occurrence of each of the 7 letter-named pitches in each key, so you can't have both a C and C# in the same key signature. This means the key of F CAN NOT have an F# in it. It means the key of Eb MUST HAVE at least Bb and Eb in the key signature (since those are the first two flats in order up to Eb - but there may be more!).
4. C is the primordial key. It has no sharps or flats. When in doubt, you can calculate from C, but it's better to memorize.
5. There are only 7 notes, so there can only be at most 7 sharps or flats. C is NO sharps. If you sharp EVERYTHING, you have C# Major. Likewise, Cb Major has 7 flats. See, you knew 3 already and didn't know it.
6. F# and Gb are enharmonic. They both have 6 accidentals. 6b for Gb, and 6# for F#.
7. If you memorize it, you will know it. You will not need to count things, or use the "piano teacher" trick anymore. You will see 5 of these thingies "#" at the beginning of the music and know that it's the key of B major.
8. You can also memorize the minor keys. Do it. HOWEVER, if you memorize your relative keys, you can cheat and memorize the Major keys only. But you know what, memorize the minors too - you'll thank yourself!

Best,
Steve

[circleoffifths]

Hi Steve, thanks for your long and detailed post

Not so easy to find Jan - page could be a little more obvious

What do you mean?

Your post is exactly what the site is about: Not to have to count but knowing it immediately

Have a great rest of the sunday.
Yours, Jan

[stevel]

Start learning or take one of the quizzes right away.
Best of luck in your musical "career". Yours, Jan

Learning and Quizzes are just italicized.

You could put:
Start Learning in a bold, larger font, with the whole thing being a link.
Quizzes - ditto.

If you click the learning link you get:

1. Take a look at the whole Circle of Fifths here and simply memorize it. Print it out for your way to work or to school...

Here is again simply italicized. Those are really hard to see - you can't bet that every one using every browser can see those italics as being different from the surrounding text.

Circle of Fifths chart to memorize. As a link would be clearer. There's an old saying in web page construction that you should not put things like "click [here] to go to my web page". It is better to put "My Web Page" as a link. Or "Go To My Web Page", etc.

In the old days, before underlines for links, the brackets used to be used [link] for links - you still see this in some commercials where they're trying to be hip and haven't yet realized the internet has moved past thus rudimentary stage. But having inline links that say "here" is a bad idea. They're likely to be overlooked.

Just trying to help you get more visibility Jan!

Steve

[circleoffifths]

Steve, please don't worry. Your suggestions are most welcome and I thank you for them. I changed the links from italics to underlined. Will also rethink the "here" problem....

Thanks again and keep them coming.
Best greetings from Hamburg in Germany. Yours, Jan

[circleoffifths]

http://www.circle-of-fifths.net just reached 20.000 visitors
Thanks again for your help and making it a success.

Still suggestions are welcome..
Yours, Jan

[Stenir]

I agree that you should memorize all of these, however:

Just remember, for those of you who are looking for those silly little shortcuts we all used to get taught:

1.) To determine what a key is with sharps, go to the last sharp and go up one note (in 5 sharps, the last sharp is A#, and the next note is B, so B major). Just remember that if you have something with, say, 6 sharps, the last sharp will be E#, and the next note up is F, but since it's already F#, the key is also F#.

2.) As stated before, the name is either F for 1 flat, or the second to last flat.

Hate to say I know those tricks, but I've gotten to the point where I see 4 sharps and immediately see E major (or Fb depending on how crazy I like to be...thank you to whatever program allowed double-flats in key signatures).

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Stenir

I agree that you should memorize all of these, however:

Just remember, for those of you who are looking for those silly little shortcuts we all used to get taught:

1.) To determine what a key is with sharps, go to the last sharp and go up one note (in 5 sharps, the last sharp is A#, and the next note is B, so B major). Just remember that if you have something with, say, 6 sharps, the last sharp will be E#, and the next note up is F, but since it's already F#, the key is also F#.

2.) As stated before, the name is either F for 1 flat, or the second to last flat.

Hate to say I know those tricks, but I've gotten to the point where I see 4 sharps and immediately see E major (or Fb depending on how crazy I like to be...thank you to whatever program allowed double-flats in key signatures).

Well, I learned those tricks too, but here's the problem - a Key signature does not tell you what key a piece is in. 4# could be E major or C# minor. Furthermore, many older works use modal key signatures, so sometimes you see B minor (Scarlatti, etc.) with only 1 sharp!

And ths biggest problem of all - suppose you're not looking at music! When someone ASKS you what the key signature of B Major is, you might know that A# would be the last sharp you'd see in the "stack", but which number is that? F C G D A - OK, 5. But if you KNOW B has 5, you've already got the answer. And when they ask for D# minor - quick - tell me that one!

So don't memorize them - KNOW them!

Best,
Steve

[Stenir]

Well, D# minor is the relative minor for F# major, which has 6 sharps.

That was quick, hopefully quick enough for ya, since I just read your post a second ago.

Or I could say that D# minor is the same as Eb minor, and Eb minor is the relative minor for Gb major, which has 6 flats, and that's the enharmonic key signature to F# major.

I prefer flats over sharps, obviously.

The only true reason I stated the tricks everyone is taught is so that they are listed here. Other than that, I wouldn't have done it.