|
Cranbury Music presents The Circle of Fifths. This is a music theory learning aid to help you visualize the Circle of Fifths and learn all the associated key signatures as they appear on each of the different clefs. Click on any of the notes in the Circle of Fifths to see the signatures for that key on all the clefs. You may notice that moving half way around the circle clockwise brings us to F#, while counter-clockwise half way brings us to Gb. We call F# and Gb enharmonic* notes. |
|
A perfect fifth is a musical interval of seven semi-tones, or half-steps. If you start at the lowest C on the piano and move upward a fifth, you come to G, which is to the right of C on the Circle of Fifths. If you continue upward by fifths, you will move around the circle clockwise. The 12th fifth brings you back to C, the highest note on the keyboard; and also back to the top of the Circle of Fifths. As we move around the circle clockwise, we add a sharp to (remove a flat from) the signature of the key of the same name. From this we see that 12 perfect fifths are musically equal* to seven complete octaves. |