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Why is the Circle of fifths important?

R

Reflective

Sep 6, 2009
48
1
#1
As the title states. I understand the concept behind it, but I don't understand why it's very important to my bass playing. To me it seems more important for transposing. What do I need to know about it?

I guess what I'm trying to ask here is.... what do I need to know about the circle of fifths to apply it to my bass playing and help me improve?
 
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#2
Well, I know there's more to it than this, and hopefully someone else can chime in because I'd love to know as well, but there are a lot of songs that aren't really written in a typical chord progression but rather follow the circle of fifths, such as Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe". Knowing the circle of fifths will help you when you're transcribing these songs. If you don't know the song your trying to learn follows the circle of fifths, and know the circle of fifths itself, then it may be very hard to transcribe and make sense of what you're transcribing.

Also, it's good for practicing things in all keys. Some people say playing something in all keys is a waste of time, but I don't think so. If there's a phrase you like, but you only play it in the key of A, you may only access it when you're playing in the key of A, where as if you transpose that phrase to C and learn how to play it there, then you can access later in C as well. The circle of fifths is good for this because if you play the different keys in the order according to the circle of fifths it sounds really good, nothing really sounds out of place, and your fingers are moving in larger steps, which will make you think more and improve quicker, than going through the keys like C, C#, D, D#, E, F, etc.

But, I do believe there's also more to it than that...
 
#5
I have students play the circle of fourths in a linear way.
Start each change on one string, E.
As Matthew_84 states the 5th's is great to help transpose
and also get to know the neck well.
Also use it for speed training say, in 16th's.
 
#6
Reflective said:
As the title states. I understand the concept behind it, but I don't understand why it's very important to my bass playing. To me it seems more important for transposing. What do I need to know about it?

I guess what I'm trying to ask here is.... what do I need to know about the circle of fifths to apply it to my bass playing and help me improve?
Click to expand...

Play the root of the circle- you don't need to go through the whole thing. Then, think about all of the songs you have heard that sound similar. THAT's why it's important- it has been used in music for hundreds of years. If you don't remember hearing this, I would suggest that you work on ear training.
 
#8
Music is made up of building and releasing tension and 'predictable' movement and surprises.
If you've had some theory classes at piano, enough to have some voice leading, which reduces a lot of the time to minimizing finger movemet, you will have noticed that the circle of fifths chord with 4 note (jazz theory) chords each share 2 notes with the previous chord.
dm7 d f a c
G7 d f g b
CM7 c e g b

This allows the song to move along in a smooth way, but still move with a sense of resolution. (It goes even deeper than this as the 3's and 7's of one chord are resolving (and flipping) to the 7's and 3's of the next chord. It's brilliant really)

So it's not just something that shows up as a chart in a theory book. It's a way that songs/music moves -- and it also provides some nifty ways to backfill a static section with movement and change keys and alternate tritone suibstitution that uses differnt shared notes to get to the same resolution.

As a bass player, it's importatnt to know the chord tones and chord progressions commonly share chord tones change to change and circle of fifths is the teachable depiction of that.

I just picked up Gary Willis Fingerboard harmonics and there's a brilliant exercise in there to play chord tones starting at the lowest note and play within a range of say 5 frets up the fretboard and when you run out of range play back down. Then alternate two related chords. Then I've added a little circle of fifths.
THat exercise really puts the patterns into muscle memory and also reveals the shared chord tones in common progressions.
 
#9
Reflective said:
I guess what I'm trying to ask here is.... what do I need to know about the circle of fifths to apply it to my bass playing and help me improve?
Click to expand...
The circle of fifths/fourths is a cheat sheet that can tell you many things - if you know where to look.
400px-Circle_of_fifths_deluxe_4.svg.png

  1. It's a circle thus you can rotate it. if you place the tonic I chord at 12:oo O'clock the IV chord is to the left and the V chord is to the right. Song called out to be in A. Place the A at 12:00 O'clock and the IV D chord is to the left and the V E chord is to the right. No idea how that smiley face got in there.
  2. The minor 6th chord is shown in the center of the circle. If you are using the key of A then A's relative minor chord is the F#m chord.
  3. Keeping with the key of A. The major chords in the key of A are the A, D & E. So the minor chords are the F#m, Bm, & C#m. The diminished is the 7th or G#m7b5. Major chords on the outside of the circle and minor chords on the inner circle. Notice where the m7b5 is located.
  4. In the normal setting of C at 12:00 O'clock how many sharps does the key of A have? Answer 3. Notice A occupies the 3:00 O'clock space. Using your memory peg of "Fat cats go down alleys eating brids" The key of A will have a F#, C# and G#.
  5. Again in the normal setting notice it gets crowded in the lower spaces of the circle. B and Cb occupy one space, F# and Gb occupy another and C# and Db occupy the third lower space. Why? We have 7 sharps and 7 flats so the sharps and flats wrap around the 6:00 O'clock space. B and Cb are the same which do we use? B has 5 sharps and Cb has seven flats - we normally use B as 5 sharps are easier to use than 7 flats. Same for the other two. Look on the chart for the relative minor shown for these spaces. G#m would indicate that B would be the normal key to use.
  6. You have flats going around one side and sharps going around the other side. I've seen it used either way, i.e. sharps seem to be on the clockwise side, however flats can and do occupy this clockwise movement also.
  7. Suppose you have a chord progression like:
    Cmaj7/// | //// | //// | Gm7 / C7 / |F ///|
    And would like to fill in between the Cmaj7 and the Gm7 -- looking at the circle of 5ths -- D leads to G so insert a D. That may be enough and you can stop there, but let's go on -- then ask what leads to D? Well A leads to D so insert an A. What leads to A? E leads to A, so insert an E and what leads to E, well a B will lead to an E so insert a B. Now the neat thing about this --- Think of Gm7 as being a temporary dominant, and think only of the basic chord (the left hand side of the chord not the emblished right hand side) that D to Gm7 just gave you a ii-V and the C7 completes a ii-V-I (basic chord). Now think of the D as being a temporary dominant, that A just gave another ii-V and the Gm7 completes another ii-V-I. All you have to do is decide to leave them as a major chords or emblish - remembering some of our key theory - the inserted D could be a D, Dm, D7, Dm7 or even Dm7b5, whichever one fits best.
I'm sure there are more items and others will probably point them out. Now how much of that will be useful in your bass playing, depends on where you are on your theory road. The circle is a cheat sheet we can use to jog our memory. Unless you know what to look for, it's just wall paper.

Have fun.
 
#10
Practice arpeggios and chord tones by moving around around the circle of fifths within a key.

Fore example don't practice the chords of c major in linear order:

Cmaj Dmin Emin Fmaj Gmaj Amin Bdim C maj

instead follow the roots around the circle:
Cmaj Fmaj Bdim Emin Amin Dmin Gmaj C maj

Why? because V-I root movement is the most common chord motion in pop music.
You'll be practicing chord tones in a sequence that places them near the most common 'next set' of chord tones
(except maybe IV-vii(Fmaj-Bdim), which is a flat 5th)
 
#11
Flip it and practice materials and walking lines in the cycle of 4ths:
C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-B-E-A-D-G
Major and minor arpeggios, walking lines, etc.
A lot of Jazz Standards use harmony moving in 4ths.
 
#13
+1 to all above. To a new player or someone coming to some theory ideas they cannot appreciate the idea of Cycle of 4ths and 5ths because they will not learn, or have not learned the theory that supports it. They learn the positions on the neck, and that is great because they learn the idea of transposing music at will, just change the position of the first note played and keep everything relative to that as a shape and it will all sound the same...but in a new key.

But for me I have had some great fun and some real leaps with students as to what the cycle of 5ths is about from a construction point of view.
If you can construct scales, you can construct chords, then you can use those chord tones to play with, interact, or harmonise with other notes, keys, or chords. It's called Tetra Chord Theory, it's a great lesson on a way to construct scales, but it also reveals how using 5ths in a cycle works, it is not just a random number, as well as 4ths, again not a random number.
I personally had this lesson before any theory work on scales, chords etc began.
Sure I played and practiced scales and such, but once their interaction was to be explained I got Tetra Chord Theory first....as a game and a puzzle to work out, then my work was checked to see how I interpreted the information, then we went from there.

Because I had a grounding in the construction, and the fact I was being taught music from an orchestral approach, ( i was nine years old, playing bass was years ahead of me..not even thought about at this point LOL ) my teacher could set a question, then leave it to us to work it out.
Sometimes she would get on with other students, set up lessons, even go out the room and just leave us. Sometimes it would take days to get one idea right, she would look at the answer and just say " not right, try again".
Looking back as I do, I see what was happening, not at the time mind you, she was making us work it out by seeing what we had learned. By making us use what we learned we can work it out, if we cannot, then we have,
a/ not learned or done the work set for us.
b/ we have not understood the work set for us.
So she used her experience to decide if we could eventually work it out or if we would genuinely never get it, in that case she would know what part we are missing by the way we are making the mistakes and not getting the correct answers. So the missing info was targeted, rather than repeat the whole lesson again we would get specific ideas to use that would help with the bit we were struggling on. That info would never be the same for each student, because it is using our own experience to relate the information to.....so a highly personal and individual approach to each players needs.
So my lessons supported ideas, miss out on one idea, or not fully understand it, and It will compound on laters ideas and lessons to make them harder or even confuse and in the end frustrate us, lead to apathy and feeling of being overwhelmed and quit.....or just not see the point of learning.

Check out the link, it a recent discussion on scales, and see if it helps make sense of Cycle of 5ths ( and 4ths). Check out the last page if you cannot be bothered to read it all.
It looks long but really it is just one simple idea repeated in each example, once you have the idea, then a pen and paper will see you work it all out with no bass needed....which is what theory is about.....the instrument is just the application of it, so you play what you have learned once it is in your head, you do not try learn and play at the same time, another great lesson for the future, learn the idea and understand it first, then work on the application....so much easier.
See it as a bit of fun, like a cross word puzzle or a fun puzzle that you find in papers and magazines.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f22/scales-necessary-896246/index6.html#post12886626
 

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