Circle of Fifths

In this warm-up podcast, we're going to be talking about the circle of fifths, and if you've learned major scales and you basically know the notes on the fretboard, you at least know how to find the notes on the fretboard, whether that's fast or slow, then this podcast is really going to help you put the pieces together in terms of learning all 12 major scales. That's something that every musician really needs to learn to take music theory at all seriously. Anything you learn in music theory, I think ultimately depends one way or another on knowing your major scales. If you learn some exotic scale and the notes of some exotic chord, it really is going to be very confusing without knowing the notes of each of the 12 major scales. So that's really what I'm going to use this podcast to help demonstrate today. And I'm going to give you a very slow, methodical exercise to get that information under your fingers and get it memorized as well. So the first thing we're going to do is just play a basic C major scale here in the second position. And the notes are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. And actually, before we get started, like I said before, if the notes on the fretboard are confusing to you, if you don't have that under control, definitely go check out our notes on the fretboard tutorial in the beginner podcast before you get started. And so anyway, the C major scale as I just demonstrated has no sharps and flats in it. Now, the essence of what we're going to be doing today is really kind of seeing the scale, instead of seeing it as eight notes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, seeing it really more as two groupings of four notes, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 6, 7, 8. So we have sort of the lower half of the scale and the upper half. And there are terms for those. They call that a tetrachord. A grouping of four notes is called a tetrachord. So if I start on the tonic of the scale, which is C, that's the tonic tetrachord of the C scale. The fifth note of the scale is called the dominant. So this one, the four notes starting on the fifth of the scale is called a dominant tetrachord. Tonic tetrachord, dominant tetrachord. Anyway, a lot of names for a simple concept. And it's going to be important. So what we're going to do to learn this circle of fifths is identify the fifth note of each scale and work our way through all 12 keys. So if I started on the C scale, found the fifth note of that C scale, which is G, G, A, B, C could be the first tetrachord, the first half of the new scale, the G scale. G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. So I go G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. And notice how the G scale has one F sharp in it. If you're confused why the G scale has an F sharp in it, you need to go back and study major scales. Those are whole steps and half steps. It goes whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. It's sort of out of the range of this podcast and we definitely have been over that in earlier podcasts. So make sure you're clear on that. So anyway, if I started on the G, that G which is the fifth fret of the fourth string, if I just started on the same G here at the 10th fret of the fifth string, that's G as well. Effectively played the exact same pattern that I played over here for C. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G for the G scale. Notice how of course I'm saying the notes out loud. That's maybe the most important thing of this whole exercise is to slow down and count and say all the notes out loud. I can't guarantee you it's going to be necessarily easier or fun to play through all 12 of these scales and get it all down, but if you do it a little bit every day, it definitely will come together. You'll learn all your 12 major scales, you'll know all the notes, you'll know the notes on the fretboard, and everything else you do in music theory beyond that point is going to be a whole lot easier. So the fifth note of the G scale is D. So if I started on the D down here at the fifth fret of the fifth string, D, E, F sharp, G, A, B, C sharp, D. So each time as we go up, we're noticing the seventh note here with these sharp keys is our new sharp. So D, E, F sharp, G, A, B, C sharp, D. Same scale pattern in terms of the fingering. So now if I start on the fifth note of the D scale, which is A, I find A over here at the twelfth fret of the fifth string. A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp, G sharp, A. The fifth note of the A scale is E. E is down here on the seventh fret of the fifth So we get C, the C scale, to the G scale, to the D scale, to the A scale, to the E scale, to the B scale, to the F sharp or the G flat scale, to the D flat scale, to the A flat scale, to the E flat scale, to the B flat scale, to the F scale. And finally, back to the C scale. So each of those are progressing up a fifth. I want to mention, back when we talked about the G flat and the F sharp, the fact that you could call this the G flat or the F sharp major scale. The same is true with both the B major scale we had. You could actually refer to the B major scale as a C flat major scale, in which case everything is flat. That's kind of rare, but it's possible. So C flat, D flat, E flat, F flat, G flat, A flat, B flat, C flat. As well as the D flat scale, which sometimes you'll see referred to as a C sharp scale, where everything's sharp. C sharp, D sharp, E sharp, F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, B sharp, C sharp. So in that sense, even though there's really 12 major scales to your ear, academically speaking, there's 15 major scales, because there are three that actually have anharmonic spellings. So what I did is just demonstrated that circle of fifths with a single scale pattern, just moving it around where the root's on the fifth string. If you look at the second page of the tab, you could also practice it where you just do it completely in position. Starting here, meaning not jumping all over the fretboard, more or less trying to keep everything centered in one area. Let's say within the first five or six frets of the fretboard here. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and then the G scale. G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G, to the D scale. To the A scale, A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp, G sharp, A. To the E scale, E, F sharp, G sharp, A, B, C sharp, D sharp, E. To the B scale, B, C sharp, D sharp, E, E natural actually, F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, B. To the G flat scale, G flat, A flat, B flat, C flat, D flat, E flat, F, G-flat to the D-flat scale, D-flat, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, C, D-flat to the A-flat scale, A-flat, B-flat, C, D-flat, E-flat, F, G, A-flat, almost done, E-flat, so the E-flat here on the first fret of the fourth string, E-flat, F, G, A-flat, B-flat, C, D, E-flat, and then the B-flat scale, B-flat, C, D, E-flat, F, G, A, B-flat, F major, F, G, A, B-flat, C, D, E, F, and then of course back to C, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. So both ways are valuable. You know, practicing it where you're moving the same pattern around, the same strings, or practicing it more in a vertical way, where you're just trying to play it all within one position. Again, the most important thing here is to do it slowly. I demonstrated this kind of quick, just in the essence of time, and because you have tabs to look at. But do it extremely slowly, and absolutely say all the notes out loud, and just understand that concept that each scale starts on the fifth note of the previous scale. So that's the circle of fifths. Hi, this is Giles Martin. I'm here at Abbey Road Studios to talk about Can't Buy Me Love. Can't Buy Me Love was recorded on the 29th of January, 1964, in Paris, not here. The reason why the Beatles are in Paris is, at that time, they constantly toured. Chords, as we learned in the acoustic part, are E minor to A minor, E minor to A minor, D minor 7.