Circle of Fifths – How to Understand and Actually Use It

Added: 2026-05-03

[00:00:00]The circle of fifths is an amazingly powerful tool that a lot of students don't know how to use properly. So today I'm going to give you a clear overview of the circle of fifths and how to actually use it playing piano. To best understand the circle of fifths, we're going to fill it in together. And we're going to start with C at the top. It's kind of like a clock but with letters.

[00:00:17]So we got C at 12:00. Then we have G at 1:00, D at 2:00, E A at 3:00, excuse me, E at 4:00, B at 5:00, and F sharp at 6:00. So we have half of the circle filled in already. Now we have to talk about why is this called the circle of fifths. Each note in the circle is five notes past the one before it. So we start out with C, right? And the next one we have is five notes up in the C scale. 1 2 3 4 5. Oh, look. The second one we have is G. And if we go up five notes in the G scale, 1 2 3 4 5. Oh, wow. That's D. And what do you think?

[00:00:58]You go up five in the D scale. Oh, there's A. So, it's called the circle of fifths because it's literally a circle moving in fifths. Now, there's something you got to keep in mind, though, and that is at the bottom here. You notice how this last one's F#. Pretty weird, huh? How come it's not just F? Well, this is why it's important you learn your scales because the fifth note up in the B scale, which is the one before it, is actually Fsharp and not F. Next, what I'm going to do on top of the circle is I'm going to draw an arrow going to the right that's going to say sharps and an arrow going to the left that's going to say flats. And also on the outside of the circle, we're going to draw the number zero above C and then one above G, two above D. um kind of like a clock but we are putting them uh putting the numbers to the clock now except unlike a clock we're also going to number them the other way 0 to six.

[00:01:53]So instead of 0 to 12 all the way around it's 0 to 6 0 to 6. Now let's draw the other half of the circle or fill it in.

[00:02:01]Now we're going to start at C and we're actually going to go the opposite counterclockwise direction. And so we have F is our first one followed by B flat. interesting. I will talk about it.

[00:02:15]E flat is next. Then you got A flat, D flat, and then G flat at the bottom.

[00:02:23]Now, at the very bottom, I want to talk about first because it says F#arp at the top, G flat at the bottom. Well, guess what? Those are actually the same note, and they're going to have the same scale. So, remember before I drew an arrow with flats going to the left? So going to the right are the key signatures with sharps in them. And we're going to talk a lot more about this later in the lesson. But going to the left are the key signatures with flats in them. And that's why we number them 0 to six on each side cuz the right side is top is zero, bottom one is six sharps. And then the other side is top is zero, bottom one is six flats. And that's why a lot of these on the left side here have flat next to them. But there's a little bit more to it than that. And remember, it has to do with scale notes. It's not five notes above or below the other one. It's five scale notes, right? So you got to remember that C is at the top and F is before C.

[00:03:23]So we're moving counterclockwise now. So that means C has to be the fifth note of the F scale.

[00:03:32]Hey, it checks out just fine. And then guess what? If we're in the F scale, we're in the second one over and we're going to B flat. Well, guess what? B flat is the scale that you know five notes up from there is F. So we're moving in the other direction. It's a little trickier because we're moving the other way. But just remember that the scale note or whatever you're looking at, say we're looking at E flat and then we're looking at the next one. We're trying to figure out the next one. Well, the next one would be five notes up in the E flat scale, which hey is actually B flat. But what you want to understand mo more than anything is 0 to six on each side sharps and then flats because this is going to open up the entire lesson from here. So one of the great uses of the circle of fifths right off the bat is if we have the letter name of the key that we're in, we can easily determine if it's a major key how many sharps or flats it has. For example, if we have the key of D, that's going to have two sharps. We just look on the circle. Two sharps. And we know that the key of D has two sharps. And we'll talk about what those are in a second. But if you must know, those are F# and C sharp. Same thing with flats. If I'm like, okay, we're in the key of E flat. How many flats do we have? Well, we have three flats. That's what it says on the circle. So, the circle of fifths so far, it's a little bit more than this, and we'll talk about it, is a visual representation of all 12 keys and how many sharps or flats that they have.

[00:05:05]Also, real quick, this is the order in which you want to learn your scales or key signatures. So, you want to start at the top with zero, which makes it really easy, right? Because if you're playing the C scale, there's no sharps or flats.

[00:05:17]And then what you want to do is go around in the circle, then learn the key with one sharp, which would be G. That's one sharp. And then D is the next one.

[00:05:25]So it also tells you the order in which to learn your key signatures so that you're not jumping from one sharp to six sharps or six flats. That would be too much to handle. It makes this a lot easier to tackle. Now, this is very important and we're going to start deep diving into the circle of fifths. Are you ready? So, so now we're really going to deep dive into the circle of fists talking about what notes are sharped or flatted in each key because if we're in the key of E, we have four sharps. But guess what? None of those sharps are E.

[00:05:56]It sounds really weird. So, let me show you how to tackle this. First, you want to or First, you want to memorize something called your order of sharps, which is F, C, G, D, A, E, B. Say it again. F C G D A E B. Now, a student of mine, this might sound a little mean, so blame my student Michaela for coming up with this, you know, 15 years ago. Maybe it wasn't that long ago, 10, 15 years ago. She said, you know, to come up with a saying for it is fat children gather at every breakfast. F C G A E B. So, you can use that little saying to remember it. Um, and then the order of flats is the opposite um of the in order of the order of sharps. So if the order of sharps is F C G D A E B order flats is B E A D G C F. So memorize these, write them down. But I'm going to be honest, it's actually in the circle already. If you start from F and go around the clock, look, F, C, oh my goodness, G D A E B. So you can actually use the circle of fifths to figure out your order of sharps. And I'll talk about what the order of sharps is in a second, but it's the same thing going around on the other side of the circle where you start with B flat over here. B, E, A, D, and then we're going down here because that's the flats, G, and then C, and then that would be F. So, that one's a little bit trickier. Um, I might write a C and an F here. Um, cuz C flat is B and then F flat is E. So, some circles have that written in for you, some it might not, but you can at least get the BE A D G here to uh help fill in the rest. So, the order of sharps and flats all has to do with key signatures. And those are the sharps or flats we see in the beginning of a piece that tells us what notes are sharped or flatted throughout the entire piece. And the order of sharps and flats comes into play right here. So, if there's nothing written like there is here, that's automatically the key of C. It could be the key of A minor, but either way, it's telling you there are zero sharps and zero flats to worry about in the key. And that was the top one on top of the circle. Zero sharps, zero flats. So, we're going to go to the key with one sharp. We already know that the name of that key is G because that's the next one in the circle. But let's see what sharps that it has because it's not G. Okay, a sharp appeared. And we're only counting one of them because it's the same letter between each cleft. And that letter is if you put a note right where those are the top line or the next to top line in the bass cleft that would be F. And that's telling you that all Fs in the entire thing are sharp no matter what.

[00:08:43]But the key name is G. Isn't that weird?

[00:08:46]Well, let's continue. So, let's do the one with two sharps. We know from the circle that that's the key of D, the name of it. But the two sharps we have are a little different. There we go. We have two sharps. Now, we actually had the sharp from the first time on the top line of the treble cleft. See that? The same one. And then we added one to it right on if we're just looking at the treble cleft, the third space up from the bottom. And if we had a note there, that would be C. So now we have the notes F and C that are sharp. But the key name is D. Isn't that strange? Well, there's a pattern starting to form.

[00:09:18]Let's go to the key A and see if we can pick it out. Oh, A. There's another sharp there. And actually, we have the first two sharps that we have before, F and C. And then we add another one, you know, top above the staff there. That would be G. So we have F CG. That should sound familiar. That's the order of sharps. F C G D A E B. So the point I'm getting across is when we add a sharp each time, we're doing the order of sharps, we have all the sharps from the existing key before. So let's say we have four sharps, right? We have four sharps. Now the name of the key, if you look at the circle, is now let's figure out what sharps what four sharps exist in the key of E. It's very easy. It's F, C, G, D. So, first you find out the letter name. Then you find out how many sharps it has. And then you use the order of sharps. You know, say we have five sharps, F, C, G, D, A. And those tell you what notes are actually sharped in the key signature because remember the name of the key signature often doesn't line up with notes, what notes are sharped or flatted throughout the key. You have to do this extra step. And by memorizing the sharps and flats, that's how it's done. Now, you can imagine if we were doing flats, let's say we had the key with four flats uh here. So, if we count down the circle, we can see that that's the key of A flat. Now, what four flats do we expect to have? B E A D perhaps. Well, let's check our answer and see if we're right.

[00:10:48]And there, I just clicked on A flat and look. B E A D. C. Do you understand now why it's important to memorize the sharps in the flats? So, so far we still have more things to fill in as you can see the inner part of the circle, but you can see so far that the circle of fifths tells us how many sharps or flats within each key and also the letter name of each key. Something that's super duper important. You ever want to play with a jazz band or even learn new pieces on your own? If you see that it's oh, it has four sharps. Oh, we're in the key of E. And that gives you a much better idea on, you know, the layout of the keys you're going to be playing for that piece. Another thing that's really important to understand are what the primary chords are for each key signature. So, just to really explain it nice and easy, say we have the key of C major and we play the C major scale, which is playing all the notes in a key from beginning to end and any scale notes in between. So C, remember, no sharps, no flats, makes things really easy for us. There are seven individual notes in the scale.

[00:11:54]1 2 3 4 5 6 7 with the last one being repeated. So eight and one are the same uh those notes. Now you can build a chord on each note of the scale. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. And then we're back to one. So, a six chord would be this one. A four chord would be this one. Uh, one chord would be just built on the first note.

[00:12:20]Get it? Now, the primary chords in each key are the most common chords likely that you're going to see in your piece of music. So, if we're in the key of C, our most common chords or primary chords are always one, first note of the scale.

[00:12:35]Then on four, that's F. And then five, that's G. So, in the key of C, our primaries are C, F, and G. And we can actually use this circle to know what the primary chords are. Do you see the pattern? I mean, we might have to do another key or two to figure it out, but we're in the key of C, right? That's at the top there. And then I said that the primary chords are C, F, and G. Well, you can see these are right next to each other in the circle.

[00:13:07]So the primary chords in C are C, F, G.

[00:13:11]If you're in the key of G, the primary chords are C major, sorry, G major, C major, and D major.

[00:13:18]Got a little tongue tied. Let's say we're in the key of E, right? Our primary chords are E major, A major, and B major. If you're in the key of F sharp, and if so, if you're in the key of E flat major, your primary chords are going to be E flat, B flat, and A flat.

[00:13:34]So the circle tells us what the primary chords are. Let's talk a bit about minor keys. So for every key signature, there's a major like C major, zero sharp, zero flats, and then there's a minor equivalent. So just like there's a major chord key, excuse me, that has zero sharp, zero flats. There's also a minor one. And here's how you figure out the minor equivalent if you have the major key already. So what you do is you find the note we're on, C. That's the key name. And to find the minor equivalent, the minor key with the same key signature, you count down a one, a two, a three half steps, uh, uh, uh, and sorry, I always laugh at that stupid joke. If you've never seen Sesame Street, well, don't worry about it.

[00:14:20]Anyway, it's three half steps below the note that you're on. So, so let's say we're in the key of D right here, right?

[00:14:26]What would the minor equivalent of D major be? It would be a one, a two, a three half steps. Uh uh uh down from D. I always have to say that every time.

[00:14:38]I'm sorry, guys. Down from D. And the minor scale with two sharps is going to be B minor. As the same two sharps, they just kind of fit in a different spot in the scale because you're starting on a different note. So, let's fill in some of the circle with the minor equivalents. So now we can consult the circle for our major keys on the outside and minor keys on the inside. And just like the major keys, like if we're in the key of A minor, our primary chords are A minor, E minor, and D minor. Now, one thing I do want to tell you is that a lot of times, now this one, okay, I tell you a lot of times that major chords are written in uppercase letters.

[00:15:24]And if it's written in minor case, you're probably talking about minor chords. However, I wrote this capital B instead of this. I mean, I'll show you what I could have done. I didn't want to write BB as B flat because there wasn't an easy way to be doing it. So, that's why I wrote that one as an uppercase.

[00:15:42]So, just remember uppercase major, lowercase minor. Okay. I didn't know about this until pretty recently. But you can also use this the circle, excuse me, to figure out the spellings of certain chords. Let's talk about major chords first. So, a major chord sounds bright and happy. And if you want to play a major chord build on every note, just perfect. You start on the note.

[00:16:05]Your next note up is 1 2 3 four half steps above that one. And then another 1 2 3 above that. So, you play the note four and then three. But if you have the circle in front of you, there's an easier way to do this. The notes I played were C, E, G. Now, let's look on the circle to see if we can see a pattern. We got C, E, G right there. So, we started up top. We kind of went one and over and then we went to the outside. And let's see if this tracks for the other triads uh that we have.

[00:16:38]So, these are all major chords. And let's do the same thing with G, right?

[00:16:42]Let's say we're trying to figure out a G major chord. Well, let's do the same pattern we did before. We're starting at, you know, the letter we're starting on and then we're going on the inside of the circle but over one. So, we got the notes G, B, D. Let's play that. Oh man, it was perfect. It was perfect first try. Let's see if we can figure out a D major chord. You got the most D. Oh, that's weird. F sharp and A. Let's see if that's right with that F sharp. Oh my goodness, it was perfect first try. Let me Let me do another one. A A C#arp E.

[00:17:14]Let's try it. Hallelujah. we did it, you know, so it it it works out. Um I do recommend memorizing your chords over time knowing, you know, that's a G minor, that's a B flat minor, B flat diminished, cuz the faster you can get these in your mind. Um the the easier it'll be to play pieces because you have to know this stuff like the back of your hand. But hey, the circle, if you have it in front of you, is kind of like a little easy cheat sheet to figure out some of these chords. And if you want to turn any major chord into a minor chord, here's the secret. So you play your major chord and you take this middle note called the third because it's three notes away from the bottom. And you lower it a half step. And that's all you got to do. So you can actually use it to figure out your minor chords, too. So let's say we do G. Remember, it's GB D, but we're going to lower the middle one.

[00:18:06]Boom. G minor right away. Okay, everybody. It's time for frequently asked questions where I'm going to go over some frequently asked questions that I get about the circle of fifths.

[00:18:17]Are you ready for this first one? Well, the first question is, "How do I practice the circle of fifths?" What a great question. So, what my piano teacher used to make me do, and I he seriously did this for weeks, maybe months, where the first thing we would do is he'd say, "Okay, sit down and draw the circle of fifths." So, what I want you to practice, the first thing before I show you this book is I want you to, you know, find a blank version of this.

[00:18:43]You can either maybe copy it from when we did it earlier today. Um, or just draw the circle yourself. You just draw a circle around. Um, you don't even have to draw the circle. You just start at remember C at the top, then G is the next one. You're going around in fifths.

[00:18:57]and see how much of the circle that you can fill in from memory and then compare it to a finalized version of the circle to see if you are correct. And I would just practice drawing the circle every once in a while cuz that will get your mind in the right thinking like, okay, this one's five notes above this one.

[00:19:15]This one's five notes above this one.

[00:19:16]This one, oh, it's five scale. Remember, it's five scale notes, so there's got to be a sharp. And this gets you thinking the right way about it. So, reproduce the circle. Um, but the next thing I actually think, this is going to sound weird, is the best way to practice the circle of fifths, where the heck, here it is. The best way to practice the circle of fifths is to actually practice your scales. Cuz remember what I said about a scale is just all the notes in a key from beginning to end. And you learn your scales in the order in which you learn your sharps and then flats.

[00:19:48]So here's f four flat sharps, five sharps. See, I know them really well.

[00:19:55]just like that. And you want to know them like um you know the back of your hand. So learning all your scales will automatically help you master the circle of fifths. Although you still want to know what the circle of fifths is and be able to draw it. But you want to pick up this book, Alfred's Basic Piano Library, the complete book of scales, chords, arpeggios, and cadences.

[00:20:15]Okay. Another question I get all the time in addition to how to practice the circle of fifths is what is the circle of fourths? Maybe you've heard of that before. And that's something that I didn't know about for a while, but there's apparently a circle of force.

[00:20:27]And this is common, like if you're practicing in band, they'll say, "All right, we're going to practice the circle of force, which is where you really just play the notes around in the circle. You start at C at the top and then you go to F and then B flat and E flat." And you can see it's like pretty much the opposite of the circle of fifths, right? The circle of fifths, we started at C and then we went to G, D.

[00:20:46]But this one goes the other way. So, we're actually starting kind of with the flats first and then with the sharps.

[00:20:52]It's literally the same thing. We're just going in fourths. And it kind of reverses the circle and what it looks like. Memorize the circle of fifths.

[00:20:59]Don't bother with the circle of fourths.

[00:21:01]Just know what it is in case you play in a band. And they say, "Okay, break out the circle of force like we did when we were in band." And we'd actually just play through uh each of the notes uh as kind of a warm-up. Okay. Now, we're going to put rubber to the road. We're going to use the circle of fists to analyze this piece so that it can give us a better idea on what we're actually playing. So the first thing that we're not going to look at is the title where it says minuette and G because that's going to tell us the answer. But I wanted to pick an easy one to start with. You're going to look at the key signature, right? Because that's generally what they're going to give you first. And what do we have here? We have one sharp. It should look familiar. Now let's consult the circle of fifths. And the circle of fifths tells us that the key with one sharp is actually going to be G major or E minor. But we already know the title says G. So we are in the key of G major. Now, what does that tell us? Well, that tells us a lot of our notes are going to be centered around G, right? That we're also going to have what in the piece in F#. We saw that in the key signature already, right?

[00:22:02]Remember, it's the first in your order sharps. F CG D AE B F being number one.

[00:22:07]Um, and what I would do also is that it tells you the how to spell that G major chord, GB D, right? So, we're probably going to expect to see that chord in our piece somewhere. And we're going to check this out and and see how much of this stuff lines up here in a second.

[00:22:25]You might be surprised. And then also, it tells us our primary chords are G, C, and D. So, we're going to see a lot of G major chords, a lot of C major, and a lot of D major chords. Now, one thing I do want to tell you is a lot of times chords do appear as chords, but sometimes they are like split up between the hands. So, you might have like an F sharp down here and a D and an A up top there. Or you may even play them separately. So, when we're analyzing these chords in the piece, we're actually digging a little deeper to see in each measure what chords are being outlined. So, are you ready? We're going to see how much of this stuff uh really matched up. So, we said the key of G first. Said the key of G. And sure enough, we're in the key of G. Oh, hey, what is the first chord we have in our first measure? Oh, man, it's G major.

[00:23:16]How about that? And then I'll tell you right now, since, you know, it's this is a little bit more into the theory weeds that we'll get into in future lessons.

[00:23:24]But in the second measure, we're still outlining a G major chord. They just don't have it, you know, all in one spot. Again, you can put the B down here, G and D up here. You're still playing a G major chord. It's just broken up. And then let's see here, you know. So, we're expecting what the three chords, G major, C major, and D major, right? So, we had a G major for the first two measures. Let's take a look at this measure. See what notes are being outlined. Oh, we have a C and an E, which is outlining a C major chord. Uh, you really only need the first two notes to outline the chord. Um, but it does lead us into the G into the next measure anyway. But anyway, it's outlining a C major chord here. G, like we've haven't seen that before. So, remember G major, C major. Uh, let's see. Keep going.

[00:24:19]Let's see if we can find a D major chord anywhere. It doesn't mean that there aren't any other chords being played. It just means that the primary ones, the ones you're going to see the most are C or excuse me, G, C, and D. 1, four, and five. Oh, look. This measure right here, right before this grace note. This one.

[00:24:42]Oh, hey. That is Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You're never going to believe it. It's a D major chord, which we knew we would expect the whole time because we got G major, C major, and D major. So, like I told you, the circle fist is actually super valuable. You can actually apply it to real pieces. A lot of students don't know that. They just think, oh, you can figure out maybe your sharps and flats, which you'll memorize anyway. But remember, it tells you the primary chords. Tells you how to spell some of these chords. It tells you what the minor equivalents are. It tells you a ton of stuff. Now eventually you do want to commit it to memory and actually understand it and hear in the heart and the mind um so that you can best use it because in music this is really important that when you learn how to say read music you don't just learn it one time right you come back you practice it you master it because in music we have to use this stuff like in a second's notice right oh G major chord boom D major chord boom uh B flat major chord boom Boom. And we're going to have to play them like lightning fast. So that's why it's important to truly know and understand what you're playing. Speaking of which, I have courses over on my website, pianolessonthebe.com.

[00:26:02]So after this video is done, if you want to learn a lot more about music theory, uh how to play scales, all the stuff we talked about today, but in a lot more depth, check out my courses over on my website, pianolessontheeb.com.

[00:26:15]And if you want to stick around on YouTube for some more free stuff, I highly recommend you check out this lesson right here where I go through music theory, like a good overview of music theory, not just the circle of fifths for beginners. Check it out right here. It's been your piano teacher, Tim here, and I'll see you next