The Circle of Fifths is essentially a tool used by musicians to help them understand the various keys of music, to help transpose music into a different key, to compose new songs and to understand scales and modes of music.  Its extremely helpful and is something every guitarist should be very familiar with.

It is however somewhat involved and can be very confusing at first.  It is for this reason I created this post.  Below you will find a number of links that will lead you to various articles, tools and videos that will further explain the Circle of Fifths and how you can use it to help you become a better musician.  There are tests, quizzes and interactive programs within the links below that will keep you busy for hours as well as help burn these concepts into your memory.  I hope you enjoy and find this post helpful.  If so, please feel free to leave a comment in the comments box below.  Thanks!

Articles/Web Pages

Wikipedia Article

Circle of Fifths Key Signatures Explained

How Can the Circle of Fifths Help you Write a Song?

Video Lesson From JamPlay

Circleoffifths.com

Circle-of-fifths.net

The Circle Of Fifths Diagram

Circle of Fifths for Dummies

The Circle Of Fifths: Music Theory For Dummies from The Basics section

Circle Progressions

The Circle of Fifths

The Circle of Fifths from GuitarLessonWorld.com

Videos

The Circle of Fifths, Part 1

The Circle of Fifths, Part 2

Circle of Fifths

Circle Of Fifths – Music Theory for Guitar

Circle Of Fifths – Music Theory for Guitar – Part 2

Inversions & Circle of Fifths taught by John Miller

Example of Circle of Fifths Progression

Creating the Circle of Fifths – A Beginners Guide

Music Theory – Using the Circle of Fifths for Minor Keys

Music Theory – Using the Circle of Fifths for Major Keys

Relative Minors on the Circle of Fifths

How to Build Circle of Fifths

Interactive Tools/Software

Interactive Circle of Fifths Tool

Another Interactive Tool

Interactive Circle of Fifths 3.1

So you would like to know what chords are in the key of C Major?  Learning about the keys of music  is a very important area of study for musicians, especially for those of you who may be interested in playing with other musicians.  It will come in very handy when you have the ability to automatically play in any key.

I hope to make a whole series of posts on this topic starting with the Key of C Major and eventually hitting every key of music over time.  C Major is always a good starting point for anything. It is very often referred to as the center of the musical universe.

Basic Chords in the Key of C

Below are some basic chords that are in the key of C Major.  There are more chords in this key which will be covered below, but for now, lets look at the basics.  If you click each hyperlinked chord below, it will take you to a separate lesson on how to play each chord.  Chord charts are included.

C Major, D Minor, E Minor, F Major, G Major and A Minor

These are your basic guitar chords in the key of C.  Now lets move on to some extended chords for the key of C Major.

Extended Chords in the Key of C

So now that you got those basic chords down, lets move on and cover some different chords. Just like above, I will list them below and you can click on each hyperlinked chord to reach the lessons on how to play them.

7Th Chords in the Key of C Major

Let’s take a look at the 7th chords in the key of C.  There are your Major and Minor 7th chords which have a sort of dreamy or jazzy feel to them and there is the G7 blues chord, which is self explanatory.

CMaj7, Dm7, Em7, FMaj7, G7, Am7

9th Chords in the Key of C Major

CMaj9, Dm9, FMaj9 , Am9, G9

Well there you have it folks, 17  chords in the key of C Major for you to play around with.  If you have been playing guitar for a little while now, you should be able to play most of the above chords.  It starts to get a little tricky when you get to the 9th chords. Hang in there and keep practicing.   Enjoy.

Learn the Notes on the Guitar

Familiarizing yourself with the notes on the guitar is an important part of guitar playing.  I know it isn’t the most exciting part, but if you take time during your practice routines to learn them, you will be a better musician because of it.

Instead of just popping up a chart with all of the notes on it, I am going to explain how you can find all of the notes on your own.  It is more interesting this way and will actually help you burn the notes into your memory better.

The Basics

First let us talk about the basics. There are 12 notes and they are represented by the first seven letters of the alphabet with the addition of certain symbols that denote a flat or sharp note:

As you can see from the image above, the notes start to repeat themselves after the G#/Ab, back to the A again.  The distance between the first A and the last A is called an octave. The notes A B C D E F G are called natural notes.  The rest of the notes that have the # or b symbol are called flats and sharps or accidentals.

On the guitar, the notes are played by either striking a string or pressing down on a fret.  The diagram below illustrates  the notes of the strings of your guitar:

The distance between any two notes is called an Interval. There are various kinds of intervals in music, but lets keep things simple and talk about the most widely discussed intervals for beginner guitarists called Half Steps and Whole Steps.

Let’s take a look at the notes again:

If we start at A and want to find the note that is a half step away, it would be A#/Bb.   To find the note that is a whole step away from A, we would jump two spots up to the B.

Let’s take this same concept and apply it to the frets of the guitar.   Grab your guitar and hold it like you are getting ready to play.  Let’s start at the Low E String. That is the thickest string on your guitar. When you play that string without pressing down on any frets, you are playing an E note.

Now to go a half step up on your guitar to the F note, we would press down on the first fret of the low E string. Now press down on the second fret of the low E string (a half step from F) and you are playing an F#/Gb.  To go a whole step from F to G on your guitar, you would go up two frets and press down on the third fret of the Low E String. So, a half step on your guitar is one fret, while a whole step on your guitar is two frets.

Let’s do another example on the A string and then I am leaving the rest for you to do.

The next string down from the Low E String is the A string.  This means when you strum this string without pressing down on any frets, you are playing an A note.  Now to go a half step up on your guitar to the A#/Bb note, we would press down on the first fret of the A string.  Now press down on the second fret of the A string ( a half step up from A#/Bb) and you are playing a B note.

Is this making sense yet?    Hopefully I have explained this well enough.  You should now be able to name every note on your guitar using the exact same process for all of the strings.  Do this at least once a day during your practice session and you will memorize every note on the guitar before you know it.

Enjoy and Happy Guitar Playing!

By Ricky Sharples
If you want to play the guitar or write songs you will need to know something, at least, about guitar music theory. You could break down guitar theory down to the study of three elements: chords, scales and arpeggios.

Scales come easily to some people but others find them difficult to learn and difficult to understand. You can, in fact, relate scales to chord shapes. Understanding chords and scales is a matter of exploring the relationships between the notes on the guitar fretboard, but it is not necessary to learn to read music, just find the patterns on the guitar neck.

When you look at scales you will see a symbol like: # or b. The # is the sharp symbol which indicates when a note is played one fret above where it would normally be played. The b symbol is called a flat which is when the note is played a fret lower. One fret on the guitar is called a half step as opposed to a whole step or whole note. In the musical scale there is only a half step between the notes B and C and the notes E and F. The notes that don’t have a sharp or flat symbol are called “naturals”.

The complete set of notes in the octave are, in alphabetical order, A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#. So these notes as they are played in the C scale are C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B. The notes on the guitar begin with the open sixth string which sounds the note E, then going up the frets, F G A B C finishing the first octave on the open fourth string D. The octaves continue for twenty-one frets on most electric guitars and nineteen frets for acoustic guitars that don’t have a cutaway body.

Chords contain three or more notes. These notes form part of a scale that has the same name as the chord. The E major chord, for example, has three notes from the E major scale. Not all notes are created equal. The most important notes in a chord are the third and the seventh. They tell us whether the chord is major, minor or dominant.

When you play chords in a particulat order it is called a progression. Most chord progressions in popular music are based on the first, fourth and fifth notes of a scale. The twelve bar blues progression is one of the most popular chord progressions. Here is a how it works out in the key of C: you are using the first note – C, the fourth, F and the fifth, G. You play four bars using the C chord, two using F, the next two bars you play C again and the next two are G and F, finishing with two bars of the C chord. The most obvious example of this progression put into practice is the instrumental piece called Guitar Boogie.

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.

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By Mike Beatham

Learning guitar can be split into two main categories – the physical and the theoretical. The physical aspects of learning guitar are the finger exercises and techniques you use to manifest your theoretical knowledge on the fretboard. As you can probably see, one cannot exist without the other. Once you’ve learned those first few chords, basic strumming/picking patterns and scale fingerings, and you begin to focus more closely on things like harmony and tonality, there is often an overwhelming feeling that there is much more to learning guitar than just “where to put your fingers”.

The first thing to note is that music theory can get very deep and complex. It takes years to fully grasp many theoretical elements. Therefore, right from day 1, you need patience! You also need to be prepared to get your head down to read and study diagrams with the same rigor as you would if studying at college/university. This is what puts off a lot of guitarists with a “quick-fix” mentality. Devote practise time to both physical and theoretical elements every day and the two will marry naturally over time. You’ll see!

So, where to begin?

1) Know what intervals are and how they work on guitar

You may have already learned a few scale fingerings, but do you know how specific intervals make up the unique tonal structure of that scale? Scale intervals, the spaces between each of the scale’s tones, are measured in “half steps/semitones” and “whole steps/whole tones”, and a sequence of whole steps and half steps in different combinations creates different scales. Intervals are, quite literally then, the building blocks of scales. For example, the major scale’s intervals are (where W = whole step and H = half step):

1 W 2 W 3 H 4 W 5 W 6 W 7 H 1… (repeat from 1 again)

So, first you need to learn how whole step and half step intervals work on the fretboard, both on a single string and in the relationship between two strings. For example, a major 3rd interval is made up of two notes, two whole steps apart. You could either map this interval out across one string (half step = 1 fret space, whole step = 2 fret space) or across two strings. Mastering intervals prepares you for knowing your way around scales like the back of your hand.

2) Know the major scale right across the guitar fretboard

The major scale is seen as the elementary scale western music is referenced against. Even minor scales are notated against the major scale’s note positions. For example, a minor third is symbolised as “b3 (flat 3rd)” because the 3rd has been flattened/lowered a half step from its original, major scale position. If you come across the symbol “#5 (sharp 5th)” that refers to the tone being sharpened/raised a half step from its original major scale position.

When learning the major scale, it’s important to get used to seeing the 1st tone – 1 – as the “root note”. The note of this root note defines the key center of the scale. To change key, simply move the root note and the interval structure with it. This is why scale patterns can simply be shifted up and down the fretboard to change key without changing their form/fingering. You can apply this root note/key concept to all other scales you learn.

Once you’re comfortable with how intervals work, using the major scale as your foundation, you have a few choices for that next logical step – you can either use your major scale knowledge to build chords or start looking at modal theory, which itself expands into several areas. Let’s look at chords first…

3) Chord theory and scale equivalents

The major scale is the foundation scale from which we build and notate/symbolise chords. Starting with that all important root note, we can stack up tones from, and modified from, the major scale. This creates a chord shape on the fretboard – where several tones of the scale are fingered/played at once, across several strings. So, if you know the major scale right across the guitar’s fretboard, you can identify a root note in several positions and build the chord from each, depending on the type of voicing you want (e.g. high or low?)

Chords can be built in the following core forms:

Major triad – root, 3rd, 5th
Minor triad – root, flat 3rd, 5th
Diminished triad – root, flat 3rd, flat 5th
Augmented triad – root, 3rd, sharp 5th
Suspended triad – where the 3rd of the major or minor triad is replaced with another tone, usually the 2nd or 4th.

Once you’ve mastered building those 3-note chords, you can move onto “7th chords” (4 note chords) and then “extended chords” (more than 4 notes), both of which simply add to those existing core triads.

What’s great about learning how to build chords from scratch is how that same knowledge can then be applied to building scales. When harmonising over a chord as a lead guitarist, it’s helpful to know which tones make up the chord you’re playing over so you can then draw those same tones for use in your lead harmony/solo. Chords and scales are drawn from the same source – intervals.

When you begin to see chords and scales as essentially the same thing, that’s when the big picture begins to reveal itself and you start to see how music works much more clearly.

4) Modal theory

Modes are often misunderstood and are actually, I believe, made to sound more complex than they actually are. After following steps 1-3, you should be ready to explore modal “systems”.

Modes are referred to as “modes of the …. scale”, for example “modes of the major scale”. This immediately tells us that we need to first know that core scale from which its modes are derived.

Let’s briefly introduce the modes of the major scale. Each note of the major scale – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 – represents the root of a new mode. You can find out why they have weird names later, but it’s more cultural/geographic/historical than musical:

1 – Ionian
2 – Dorian
3 – Phrygian
4 – Lydian
5 – Mixolydian
6 – Aeolian
7 – Locrian

So, to play any of the modes from 2 – 7 (since 1 is the same root as the major scale) it’s like starting the major scale from a note other than its root, meaning you’re still essentially playing the notes of the major scale, but because the root has been moved up the scale to a new position, it adopts a new key center and it takes on a new sound and form/pattern on the fretboard.

Each of those modes, like scales, is built from a sequence of intervals that give them unique flavours and moods. However, they have another function which classifies them as modes. They work over particular chord sequences within that same scale (the major scale in this case). So, once you’ve learned the modes individually, as scales, it’s time to see how certain chord movements naturally complement them.

5) Modal chord progressions

Again, working with the major scale, we learned that each note represents the root of a new mode. Well, since each mode is essentially its own scale with its own sequence of intervals, we can also build chords around those same intervals, using the tones of the mode. For example, Mixolydian is a major mode/scale and uses a flat 7th (b7), so its chord equivalent would be major (see major triad from earlier) with a flat 7th. Think of it like superimposing the chord shape over the scale shape.

So there’s a task right there – learn the chord equivalents of each mode.

Ionian – major
Dorian – minor
Phrygian – minor
Lydian – major
Mixolydian – major
Aeolian – minor
Locrian – diminished

As we have 7 modes, we also have 7 equivalent chords, creating a chord scale, which will therefore use the same major scale intervals as its modes! It’s all connected. From this chord scale we can pull different chord sequences to create modal chord progressions.

For example, one chord progression could be: I ii V, or 1 2 5, which means we are using the equivalent chords of Ionian, Dorian and Mixolydian.

The big picture…

This is a lot to take in at once, I know, and this is why it’s essential to progress logically, using the 5 steps in this article. I hope you will continue to reference this “check list” as you progress.

Once you’ve accomplished “stage 5″, you’ll be ready to explore more freely, relying more on your musical intuition, that will have developed through those early stages. It’s all about building stable foundation knowledge which you can continue to build upon as your playing develops.

I hope this article has at least left you feeling more confident about the path you can take to mastering guitar/music theory. Then, finger placement will be less of a guessing game and more of an informed creative process, which is especially what the art of improvisation requires, when you come to it.

Enjoy the journey!

Mike Beatham runs a free, easy to follow guitar lessons site with backing tracks, tools and exercises to help you develop your own unique playing style. To learn more about the techniques discussed in this article, visit http://www.fretjam.com

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