Chapter 4
The Circle of Fifths is the cornerstone of music theory. It looks very intimidating, but don’t worry; we have developed a simple alternative to the Circle of Fifths.
Understanding the The Circle of Fifths
The Circle of Fifths is a tool in music theory that helps musicians and composers understand the relationships between different keys and the notes they use. It's called the "Circle of Fifths" because it's arranged in a circular pattern, and it's all about the musical interval of a fifth.
This circle represents all the main musical notes, like C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Now, the "fifths" part comes from the distance between these notes. When you move around the circle to the next note, you're going up by five notes. For example, from C to G, or from G to D.
Why is this important? Well, musicians use the Circle of Fifths to figure out which notes and chords sound good together in a piece of music. Let's say you're playing in the key of C major. If you look at the Circle of Fifths, you'll see that G is right next to C. That means the G major chord (and its related notes) often sounds great in a song in C major.
It's like a musical map that helps musicians understand which chords and keys are closely related and harmonize well together. Plus, it's useful for things like transposing music (changing it to a higher or lower key) and understanding the relationships between different musical elements.
Musical keys are displayed in a sequence around a circular layout. Each position inside and outside the Circle advises the key signatures (number of sharp# or flat ♭ notes) for the major and their corresponding relative minor key scales.
A position immediately above and below a position on the outside of the Circle are the major chords of its major key. A position immediately above and below a position on the inside of the Circle are the minor chords of that minor key. Adjacent positions on the circle share two common major and minor chords.
The Circle does have some serious drawbacks: Firstly, you must remember the order of the notes on the inside and outside of the Circle and the relationship of major and minor keys to each other.
Secondly, the Circle does not intuitively indicate the scale degree positions of sharp # or flat ♭ notes for major or minor keys. The relationships between adjacent keys and major/minor keys are not intuitively recallable.
Put simply - the Circle of Fifths can be difficult to decipher and use.
To address the drawbacks of the Circle of Fifths, we have copyrighted an innovative system: The Rectangle of Fifths.
The Rectangle of Fifths provides a simple, practical, meaningful and intuitive alternative to the Circle of Fifths.
The Rectangle of Fifths comprises copyrighted images and methods that are based on each note of a piano keyboard within a single octave, having a numeric value. Applying this numbering arrangement, the Rectangle of Fifth images and methods identify the key signature of any major/minor, sharp # or flat ♭ key starting from that tonic note position.
The Rectangle of Fifth images and methods identify the individual note positions that are sharp # or flat ♭, for any key and the major or minor fourth and fifth note positions for that key. The Rectangle of Fifth intuitively advises the relative minor tonic note positions for any major key.