Circle of fifths

In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a
sequence of perfect fifths. If C is chosen as a starting point, the sequence is: C, G, D, A, E, B, F ♯
(=G ♭), C♯ (=D♭), G♯ (=A♭), E♭, B♭, F. Continuing the pattern from F returns the sequence
to its starting point of C. This order places the most closely related key signatures adjacent to
one another. It is usually illustrated in the form of a circle.

Circle of fifths showing major and minor keys

Nikolay Diletsky's circle of fifths in

Idea grammatiki musikiyskoy (Moscow,
1679)
Definition

A "perfect fifth" is the musical interval between two pitches whose frequencies have a ratio of
3:2—these two pitches will be seven semitones apart. The circle of fifths organizes pitches in a
sequence of perfect fifths, generally shown as a circle with the pitches (and their corresponding
keys) in a clockwise progression. Musicians and composers often use the circle of fifths to
describe the musical relationships between pitches. Its design is helpful in composing and
harmonizing melodies, building chords, and modulating to different keys within a composition.[1]

The top of the circle shows the key of C Major, with no sharps or flats. Proceeding clockwise, the
pitches ascend by fifths. The key signatures associated with those pitches also change: the key
of G has one sharp, the key of D has 2 sharps, and so on. Similarly, proceeding counterclockwise
from the top of the circle, the notes change by descending fifths and the key signatures change
accordingly: the key of F has one flat, the key of B♭ has 2 flats, and so on. Some keys (at the
bottom of the circle) can be notated either in sharps or in flats.

Starting at any pitch and ascending by a fifth generates all twelve tones before returning to the
beginning pitch class (a pitch class consists of all of the notes indicated by a given letter
regardless of octave—all "C"s, for example, belong to the same pitch class). Moving
counterclockwise, the pitches descend by a fifth, but ascending by a perfect fourth will lead to
the same note an octave higher (therefore in the same pitch class). Moving counter-clockwise
from C could be thought of as descending by a fifth to F, or ascending by a fourth to F.

Play circle of fifths clockwise within one

octave (help·info)

Play circle of fifths counterclockwise

within one octave (help·info)

Structure and use

Diatonic key signatures

…
Each of the twelve pitches can serve as the tonic of a major or minor key, and each of these keys
will have a diatonic scale associated with it. The circle diagram shows the number of sharps or
flats in each key signature, with the major key indicated by a capital letter and the minor key
indicated by a lower-case letter. Major and minor keys that have the same key signature are
referred to as relative major and relative minor of one another.

Modulation and chord progression

…
Tonal music often modulates to a new tonal center whose key signature differs from the original
by only one flat or sharp. These closely-related keys are a fifth apart from each other and are
therefore adjacent in the circle of fifths. Chord progressions also often move between chords
whose roots are related by perfect fifth, making the circle of fifths useful in illustrating the
"harmonic distance" between chords.

The circle of fifths is used to organize and describe the harmonic function of chords. Chords can
progress in a pattern of ascending perfect fourths (alternately viewed as descending perfect
fifths) in "functional succession". This can be shown "...by the circle of fifths (in which, therefore,
scale degree II is closer to the dominant than scale degree IV)".[2] In this view the tonic is
considered the end point of a chord progression derived from the circle of fifths.

ii–V–I progression, in C Play

subdominant, supertonic seventh, and
supertonic chords (help·info)
illustrating the similarity between
them.

According to Richard Franko Goldman's Harmony in Western Music, "the IV chord is, in the
simplest mechanisms of diatonic relationships, at the greatest distance from I. In terms of the
[descending] circle of fifths, it leads away from I, rather than toward it."[3] He states that the
progression I–ii–V–I (an authentic cadence) would feel more final or resolved than I–IV–I (a
plagal cadence). Goldman[4] concurs with Nattiez, who argues that "the chord on the fourth
degree appears long before the chord on II, and the subsequent final I, in the progression I–IV–
viio–iii–vi–ii–V–I", and is farther from the tonic there as well.[5] (In this and related articles,
upper-case Roman numerals indicate major triads while lower-case Roman numerals indicate
minor triads.)

Circle closure in non-equal tuning systems

…
Perfect fifths with a frequency ratio 3:2 are said to have just intonation. Generating a series of
twelve perfect fifths in this way does not result in a return to the pitch class of the starting note.
Instruments are generally tuned with the equal temperament system, producing fifths that return
to a tone exactly seven octaves above the initial tone. Equal temperament tuning makes the
frequency ratio of each half step the same. An equal-tempered fifth has a frequency ratio of
27/12:1 (or about 1.498307077:1), approximately two cents narrower than a justly tuned fifth at a
ratio of 3:2.

Ascending by justly tuned fifths fails to close the circle by an excess of approximately 23.46
cents, roughly a quarter of a semitone, an interval known as the Pythagorean comma. In
Pythagorean tuning, this problem is solved by markedly shortening the width of one of the twelve
fifths, which makes it severely dissonant. This anomalous fifth is called wolf fifth - a humorous
reference to a wolf howling an off-pitch note. The quarter-comma meantone tuning system uses
eleven fifths slightly narrower than the equally tempered fifth, and requires a much wider and
even more dissonant wolf fifth to close the circle. More complex tuning systems based on just
intonation, such as 5-limit tuning, use at most eight justly tuned fifths and at least three non-just
fifths (some slightly narrower, and some slightly wider than the just fifth) to close the circle.
Other tuning systems use up to 53 tones (the original 12 tones and 42 more between them) in
order to close the circle of fifths.

History

Heinichen's musical circle (German:

Musicalischer Circul)(1711)

Some sources imply that Pythagoras invented the circle of fifths in the sixth century B.C. but
there is no proof of this.[6][7][8] Pythagoras was primarily concerned with the theoretical science
of harmonics and is credited with having devised a system of tuning based upon the interval of a
fifth, but did not tune more than eight notes, and left no written records of his work.[9]

In the late 1670s Ukrainian composer and theorist Nikolay Diletsky wrote a treatise on
composition entitled Grammatika, "the first of its kind, aimed at teaching a Russian audience how
to write Western-style polyphonic compositions." It taught how to write kontserty, polyphonic a
cappella works usually based on liturgical texts and created by putting together musical sections
with contrasting rhythm, meter, melodic material and vocal groupings. Diletsky intended his
treatise to be a guide to composition using rules of music theory. The first circle of fifths
appears in the Grammatika and it was used for students as a composition tool.[10]

Use

In musical pieces from the Baroque music era and the Classical era of music and in Western
popular music, traditional music and folk music, when pieces or songs modulate to a new key,
these modulations are often associated with the circle of fifths.

In practice, compositions rarely make use of the entire circle of fifths. More commonly,
composers make use of "the compositional idea of the 'cycle' of 5ths, when music moves
consistently through a smaller or larger segment of the tonal structural resources which the
circle abstractly represents."[11] The usual practice is to derive the circle of fifths progression
from the seven tones of the diatonic scale, rather from the full range of twelve tones present in
the chromatic scale. In this diatonic version of the circle, one of the fifths is not a true fifth: it is a
tritone (or a diminished fifth), e.g. between F and B in the "natural" diatonic scale (i.e. without
sharps or flats). Here is how the circle of fifths derives, through permutation from the diatonic
major scale:

0:00 / 0:00

Diatonic scale and the circle of fifths

derived from it – major

Diatonic scale and the circle of fifths derived from it – major

And from the (natural) minor scale:

0:00 / 0:00

Diatonic scale and the circle of fifths

derived from it – minor

Diatonic scale and the circle of fifths derived from it – minor

The following is the basic sequence of chords that can be built over the major bass-line:
 0:00 / 0:00

Circle of fifths chord progression –

major

Circle of fifths chord progression – major

And over the minor:

0:00 / 0:00

Circle of fifths chord progression –

minor

Circle of fifths chord progression – minor

Adding sevenths to the chords creates a greater sense of forward momentum to the harmony:

0:00 / 0:00

Circle of fifths chord progression –

minor with added sevenths

Circle of fifths chord progression – minor with added sevenths

Baroque era
…
According to Richard Taruskin, Arcangelo Corelli was the most influential composer to establish
the pattern as a standard harmonic "trope": "It was precisely in Corelli's time, the late seventeenth
century, that the circle of fifths was being 'theorized' as the main propellor of harmonic motion,
and it was Corelli more than any one composer who put that new idea into telling practice."[12]
The circle of fifths progression occurs frequently in the music of J. S. Bach. In the following,
from Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51, even when the solo bass line implies rather than
states the chords involved:

0:00 / 0:00

Bach from Cantata 51 bass line

Bach from Cantata 51

Handel uses a circle of fifths progression as the basis for the Passacaglia movement from his
Harpsichord suite No. 6 in G minor.

0:00 / 0:00

Handel Passacaille from Suite in G

minor bars 1–4

Handel Passacaille from Suite in G minor bars 1–4

Baroque composers learnt to enhance the "propulsive force" of the harmony engendered by the
circle of fifths "by adding sevenths to most of the constituent chords." "These sevenths, being
dissonances, create the need for resolution, thus turning each progression of the circle into a
simultaneous reliever and re-stimulator of harmonic tension... Hence harnessed for expressive
purposes."[13] Striking passages that illustrate the use of sevenths occur in the aria "Pena tiranna"
in Handel's 1715 opera Amadigi di Gaula :

0:00 / 0:00

Handel, aria "Pena tiranna" from

Amadigi. Orchestral introduction.
 Handel, aria "Pena tiranna" from Amadigi. Orchestral introduction

– and in Bach's keyboard arrangement of Alessandro Marcello's Concerto for Oboe and Strings.

0:00 / 0:00

Bach adagio BWV 974 (after Marcello)

 Bach adagio BWV 974 (after Marcello)

Nineteenth century
…
During the nineteenth century, composers made use of the circle of fifths to enhance the
expressive character of their music. Franz Schubert's poignant Impromptu in E flat major, D899,
contains such a passage:

0:00 / 0:00

Schubert Impromptu in E flat

 Schubert Impromptu in E flat

– as does the Intermezzo movement from Mendelssohn's String Quartet No.2:

0:00 / 0:00

Mendelssohn String Quartet 2, 3rd

movement (Intermezzo)

Mendelssohn String Quartet 2, 3rd movement (Intermezzo)

Robert Schumann's evocative "Child falling asleep" from his Kinderszenen springs a surprise at
the end of the progression: the piece ends on an A minor chord, instead of the expected tonic E
minor.
 0:00 / 0:00

Schumann, Kind im Einschlummern

(Child falling asleep)

Schumann, Kind im Einschlummern

In Wagner's opera, Götterdämmerung, a cycle of fifths progression occurs in the music which
transitions from the end of the prologue into the first scene of Act 1, set in the imposing hall of
the wealthy Gibichungs. "Status and reputation are written all over the motifs assigned to
Gunther",[14] chief of the Gibichung clan:

0:00 / 0:00

Wagner, Gotterdamerung, transition

between the end of the Prologue and
Act 1 scene 1
 Wagner, Gotterdamerung, transition between the end of the Prologue and Act 1 scene 1

Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Infanta", uses the cycle of fifths to evoke Baroque harmony to convey
regret and nostalgia for a past era. The composer described the piece as "an evocation of a
pavane that a little princess (infanta) might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish
court.":[15]

0:00 / 0:00

Ravel, Pavane pour une Infante

Défunte
 Ravel Pavane pour une Infante Défunte

Jazz and popular music

…
The enduring popularity of the circle of fifths as both a form-building device and as an expressive
musical trope is evident in the number of "standard" popular songs composed during the
twentieth century. It is also favored as a vehicle for improvisation by jazz musicians.

Bart Howard, "Fly Me to the Moon"

The song opens with a pattern of descending phrases – in essence, the

hook of the song – presented with a soothing predictability, almost as if
the future direction of the melody is dictated by the opening five notes.
The harmonic progression, for its part, rarely departs from the circle of
fifths.[16]

Jerome Kern, "All the Things You Are"[17]

Ray Noble, "Cherokee." Many jazz musicians have found this particularly challenging as the
middle eight progresses so rapidly through the circle, "creating a series of II–V–I progressions
that temporarily pass through several tonalities."[18]

Kosmo, Prevert and Mercer, "Autumn Leaves"[19]

The Beatles, "You Never Give Me Your Money"[20]

Mike Oldfield, "Incantations"

Carlos Santana, "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)"

Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"[21]

Pet Shop Boys, "It's a Sin"[22]

Donna Summer, "Love to Love you, Baby"[23]

Related concepts

Diatonic circle of fifths …

The diatonic circle of fifths is the circle of fifths encompassing only members of the diatonic
scale. Therefore, it contains a diminished fifth, in C major between B and F. See structure implies
multiplicity. The circle progression is commonly a circle of fifths through the diatonic chords,
including one diminished chord. A circle progression in C major with chords I–IV–viio–iii–vi–ii–
V–I is shown below.

Chromatic circle
…
 …
The circle of fifths is closely related to the chromatic circle, which also arranges the twelve
equal-tempered pitch classes in a circular ordering. A key difference between the two circles is
that the chromatic circle can be understood as a continuous space where every point on the
circle corresponds to a conceivable pitch class, and every conceivable pitch class corresponds
to a point on the circle. By contrast, the circle of fifths is fundamentally a discrete structure, and
there is no obvious way to assign pitch classes to each of its points. In this sense, the two circles
are mathematically quite different.

However, the twelve equal-tempered pitch classes can be represented by the cyclic group of
order twelve, or equivalently, the residue classes modulo twelve, . The group has
four generators, which can be identified with the ascending and descending semitones and the
ascending and descending perfect fifths. The semitonal generator gives rise to the chromatic
circle while the perfect fifth gives rise to the circle of fifths.

Relation with chromatic scale

…

The circle of fifths drawn within the

chromatic circle as a star
dodecagram.[24]

The circle of fifths, or fourths, may be mapped from the chromatic scale by multiplication, and
vice versa. To map between the circle of fifths and the chromatic scale (in integer notation)
multiply by 7 (M7), and for the circle of fourths multiply by 5 (P5).

Here is a demonstration of this procedure. Start off with an ordered 12-tuple (tone row) of
integers

(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

representing the notes of the chromatic scale: 0 = C, 2 = D, 4 = E, 5 = F, 7 = G, 9 = A, 11 = B, 1 =

C♯, 3 = D♯, 6 = F♯, 8 = G♯, 10 = A♯. Now multiply the entire 12-tuple by 7:
(0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77)
and then apply a modulo 12 reduction to each of the numbers (subtract 12 from each number as
many times as necessary until the number becomes smaller than 12):

(0, 7, 2, 9, 4, 11, 6, 1, 8, 3, 10, 5)

which is equivalent to

(C, G, D, A, E, B, F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, F)

which is the circle of fifths. Note that this is enharmonically equivalent to:

(C, G, D, A, E, B, G ♭, D♭, A♭, E♭, B♭, F).

Enharmonic equivalents and theoretical keys
…
The key signatures found on the bottom of the circle of fifths diagram, such as D ♭ major, are
often written one way in flats and in another way using sharps. These keys are easily
interchanged using enharmonic equivalents. Enharmonic means that the notes sound the same,
but are written differently. For example, the key signature of D ♭ major, with five flats, contains
the same sounding notes, enharmonically, as C ♯ major (seven sharps).
After C ♯ comes the key of G♯ (following the pattern of being a fifth higher, and, coincidentally,
enharmonically equivalent to the key of A♭). The "eighth sharp" is placed on the F♯, to make it
F . The key of D♯, with nine sharps, has another sharp placed on the C♯, making it C . The
same is true for key signatures with flats; The key of E (four sharps) is equivalent to the key of
F♭ (again, one fifth below the key of C♭, following the pattern of flat key signatures). The last
flat is placed on the B♭, making it B . Such keys with double accidentals in the key signatures
are called theoretical keys: the appearance of their key signatures is extremely rare, but they are
sometimes tonicised in the course of a work (particularly if the home key was already heavily
sharped or flatted).

There does not appear to be a standard on how to notate theoretical key signatures:

The default behaviour of LilyPond (pictured above) writes all single sharps (flats) in the circle-
of-fifths order, before proceeding to the double sharps. This is the format used in John Foulds'
A World Requiem, Op. 60, which ends with the key signature of G ♯ major (exactly as displayed
above, pp. 153ff. ) The sharps in the key signature of G♯ major here proceed C♯, G♯, D♯,
A♯, E♯, B♯, F .
The single sharps or flats at the beginning are sometimes repeated as a courtesy, e.g. Max
Reger's Supplement to the Theory of Modulation, which contains D ♭ minor key signatures on
pp. 42–45 . These have a B ♭ at the start and also a B at the end (with a double-flat
symbol), going B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭, F♭, B . The convention of LilyPond and Foulds
would suppress the initial B♭.
 Sometimes the double signs are written at the beginning of the key signature, followed by the
single signs. For example, the F ♭ key signature is notated as B , E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭,
F ♭. This convention is used by Victor Ewald, by the program Finale (software), [25] and by
some theoretical works.

See also

Approach chord

Sonata form

Well temperament

Circle of fifths text table

Pitch constellation

Multiplicative group of integers modulo n

Notes

1. Michael Pilhofer and Holly Day (23 Feb 2009). "The Circle of Fifths: A Brief History" ,
www.dummies.com.

2. Nattiez 1990, p. 225.

3. Goldman 1965, p. 68.

4. Goldman 1965, chapter 3.

5. Nattiez 1990, p. 226.

. Anon. "The Circle of Fifths: A Brief History" . Dummies.com.

7. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/music-theory/what-is-the-circle-of-fifths/ .
Missing or empty |title= (help)

. Anon. (2016). "The Circle of Fifths" .

9. Fraser, Peter A. (2001). "The Development of Musical Tuning Systems" (PDF): 9, 13.
Retrieved 24 May 2020. (archive from 1 July 2013).

10. Jensen 1992, pp. 306–307.

11. Whittall, A. (2002, p. 259) "Circle of Fifths", article in Latham, E. (ed.) The Oxford Companion
to Music. Oxford University Press.

12. Taruskin, R. (2010, p. 184) The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth centuries. Oxford University Press.
13. Taruskin, R. (2010, p. 188) The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth centuries. Oxford University Press.

14. Scruton, R. (2016, p. 121) The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung.
London, Allen Lane.

15. Andres, Robert, "An introduction to the solo piano music of Debussy and Ravel", BBC Radio
3, accessed 17 November 2011

1 . Gioa, T. (2012, p.115) The Jazz Standards; a Guide to the repertoire. Oxford University
Press.

17. Gioa, T. (2012, p.16) The Jazz Standards; a Guide to the repertoire. Oxford University Press.

1 . Scott, Richard J. (2003, p. 123) Chord Progressions for Songwriters. Bloomington Indiana,
Writers Club Press.

19. Kostka, Stefan; Payne, Dorothy; Almén, Byron (2013). Tonal harmony with an introduction to
twentieth-century music (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 46, 238. ISBN 978-0-07-
131828-0.

20. "You Never Give Me Your Money" (1989, p1099-1100, bars 1-16) The Beatles Complete
Scores. Hal Leonard.

21. Fekaris, D. and Perren, F.J. (1978) I Will Survive. Polygram International Publishing.

22. Tennant, N. and Lowe, C. (1987, bars 1-8) "It's a Sin." Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Ltd.

23. Moroder, G., Bellote, P. and Summer, D. (1975, bars 11-14) "Love to Love you, Baby"
copyright 1976, Bulle Music Inc.

24. McCartin 1998, p. 364.

25. https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/brass_ensembles/brass_quintets/products/sku035
994-ewald-victor-quintet-no-4-in-ab-op-8.php

References

Goldman, Richard Franko (1965). Harmony in Western Music . New York: W. W. Norton.

Jensen, Claudia R. (1992). "A Theoretical Work of Late Seventeenth-Century Muscovy: Nikolai
Diletskii's "Grammatika" and the Earliest Circle of Fifths". Journal of the American Musicological
Society. 45 (2 (Summer)): 305–331. JSTOR 831450 .

McCartin, Brian J. (1998). "Prelude to Musical Geometry" . The College Mathematics Journal.
29 (5 (November)): 354–370. JSTOR 2687250 . Archived from the original on 2008-05-17.
Retrieved 2008-07-29.
 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music, translated
by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02714-5. (Originally
published in French, as Musicologie générale et sémiologie. Paris: C. Bourgois, 1987. ISBN 2-
267-00500-X).

Further reading

D'Indy, Vincent (1903). Cours de composition musicale. Paris: A. Durand et fils.

Lester, Joel. Between Modes and Keys: German Theory, 1592–1802 . 1990.

Miller, Michael. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory, 2nd ed . [Indianapolis, IN]: Alpha,
2005. ISBN 1-59257-437-8.

Purwins, Hendrik (2005)."Profiles of Pitch Classes: Circularity of Relative Pitch and Key—
Experiments, Models, Computational Music Analysis, and Perspectives ". Ph.D. Thesis. Berlin:
Technische Universität Berlin.

Purwins, Hendrik, Benjamin Blankertz, and Klaus Obermayer (2007). "Toroidal Models in Tonal
Theory and Pitch-Class Analysis ". in: Computing in Musicology 15 ("Tonal Theory for the
Digital Age"): 73–98.

External links

Decoding the Circle of Vths

Interactive Circle Of Fifths with guitar fretboard

An open-source interactive circle of fifths for guitarists

Circle of Fourths: an orchestral overture using the circle as a chord and a melodic element