How To ACTUALLY Use The Circle Of Fifths

The circle of fifths is one of the most useful tools for any musician to learn, but learning how to actually apply the circle of fifths in a way that’s musically useful can be a bit of a puzzle... Until now.

Are you tired of hearing all this stuff about the mighty circle of fifths and not really knowing how it all applies to making music? Well, then I’ve got good news for you because I’m going to teach you how to use the circle of fifths to make really unique and engaging chord progressions.

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The new way to learn piano:

[lawrencetaylor]

I was using the circle of fifths but kept getting vertigo. So I bought 3 more pianos and line them up and just keep moving on down the line.
It's a great way to keep the pounds off since I now wear running shoes to play piano.

[codemans]

This helped me, Make a circle board with 12 slices write the scales on the outside in this order, Lydian, Ionian, mixolydian, Dorian, aeolian, pharigian, locrian, there are the 3 negative chords aswell but don't worry about that for now, now make an inner board that spins freely of the outer board, with the notes F, C, G, D, A, E, B, GB/F#, Db, Ab, En, Bb and on the inside of those notes write the relative minors, now for example you want to make a sound of F major but you only know an Aeolian/1stPentatonic scale, turn the board to F major/Ionian and you can see that it is a D Aeolian/Pentatonic scale as well if the bass is playing F major scale, or as I like to think of it, the main pentatonic position, witch roots me somewhere on the instrument, I can then figure the rest of the scale out knowing the parent major and the Aeolian in shifted versions links the entire scale, the octave etc, so it allows me to solo all over the place with limited knowledge of music and little thinking other than finding my bearings, I'm not saying this is a good way or correct haha but it has worked for me to have some use out of the board for soloing and knowing how to use a series of bass notes to gain a certain flavour out of the modes, I do not use it to write chord progressions, I write chords out of the melodies I make from the bass lines and lead together, it seems to be better that way for me personally, I've seen it over complicate peoples rythum playing and made their music hard to follow, broken down the ease of playing together freely trying to be to tricky and not making fluent musical sense, so it's not everything

[IDontReadReplies]

Don't mean to be a complainy complainer. But this didn't say much other than move around in 5ths.

[greenwave]

Been working on this for a while. Making sense now.

[briancolwill]

Very good. It'd be great to end with just playing right through both clockwise and counter clockwise for us...

[PlayaflyJoe]

This was the most effective explanation of the circle of fifths ever posted on YouTube. Minus the bloviating. Bravo sir!

[normanspurgeon]

Play Autumn Leaves in all keys- or All the Things You Are. You'll know a lot about moving in 4ths.

[RobertLeva]

THANK YOU! This is the only video that actually helped me work out a method to practice the cycle (for majors). One thing that I noticed in the video that you didnt mention, the Pattern goes: Root, 1st, 2nd, Root, 1st, 2nd etc... Once I figured out that pattern I just wrote out the chord progression, then filled in the actual chords / inversions underneath each one.

[timyoung]

I`m a guitar player who did not bother with music theory for a very long time. I'm now going back, and I think that what Im trying to learn is starting to make sense. You were very clear with this, and your theory training probably does not only have to apply to a piano???

[aloha]

Nobody made inversions look easier! Thnaks for the video. Very usefull

[scwyldspirit]

Yep I find eating ice cream challenging so I therefore use a knife

[matthewdavies]

When you said about moving down in semi tones - the formula was totally different for both the times you went down

[andyorozco]

I have no use for this. I just look at the key signature and play. Am I missing something? I understood that the circle of fifths is if you are composing and how to play chords. But again, I look at the music sheet and play.

[premasru]

Thanks so much Jordan. This makes more sense to me as a practice.

[sorreal]

3:57 - 4:05 okay finally someone who gives the resolution thanks a lot! Im always wondering man okay I can change chords in a progression now but not so beautifully but now its way better

[jannomeeuwessen]

You talked abour the first four. Where are the other chords on the circle??

[leowang]

some say "Thank you for making this concept seem easy as pie."
but I say Thank you for making this concept seem easy as memorizing all the digits of pi

[shaunmaqshaunmaq]

this is what i wanted to know ...playing the circles closer...i hate to spread them ...thank u Sir ...now i know ...

[theShaunus]

You are funny, cool and a genius too! Thank you for making this concept seem easy as pie.

[ramanaa]

Can we use d major chord and a major in key C