The Circle of Fifths: Free Songwriting Course – Part One

The Circle of Fifths

When it comes to writing music, many aspiring songwriters have the misconception that you’re either born a songwriter or are doomed to play covers for the rest of your life. The truth, however, is that with practice and a strong music theory foundation, anyone can become a songwriter.

During this free four-part songwriting course, we’re going to explore the theory of how to compose a simple song. If you work through all the additional reading that we suggest and work through these lessons, we guarantee that you’ll be able to write a song by the end of the course.

During this course, we are not going to touch on lyrics. If you want to be a lyricist, we suggest finding a poetry or creative writing teacher.

Will the song you write at the end of the course be any good? Honestly, it probably won’t be the best next #1 hit, but “good” is subjective to the listener. What we can say is that most songwriters will agree that the first ten, hundred, or even thousand songs you write won’t be great. But every time you write a new song, you’ll get a little better.

Syllabus

Each lesson in this course will focus on a different element of music theory, and the final lesson will bring it all together. We are going to publish a new lesson every other week until the course is done.

  • Circle of Fifths 
  • The Modes 
  • Cadences and Classical Music Progression Rules 
  • Bringing it all together: Writing your First Song

Required Reading

We’ve already published a few pieces on various music theory elements. We strongly suggest that you start this course by reading those lessons.

Chordal Harmonic Progression:

A chordal harmonic progression can be defined as a succession of musical chords. To clarify, that means a few chords, played one after the other.

The basic foundation of Western Music comes from the harmony created by specific chordal progressions. Today we’re going to have a look at a few simple progressions and what chords can be used in a specific key.

Triads and Extended Chords:

By the end of the lesson, not only will you have a solid understanding of triads, but you’ll be working through extended chords as well.

The Circle of Fifths

What is the Circle of Fifths?

The Circle of Fifths - Part one

Even if you’ve never studied music theory before, you’ve undoubtedly heard someone mention the circle of fifths. But what is it? In a nutshell, the Circle of Fifths is a map of Western Scales. The circle of fifths always starts on C and moves clockwise.

Take a look at the C major scale:

C(1) – D(2) – E(3) – F(4) – G(5) – A(6) – B(7) – C(1)

We can see that the C-major scale has no flats or sharps. What is the fifth note of the C-major scale? That’s right, it’s the G.

Now, let’s take a look at the G-major scale:

G(1) – A(2) – B(3) – C(4) – D(5) – E(6) – F#(7) – G (1)

Can you spot the difference? The only difference between the C-major scale and the G-major scale is the F#. So, if we keep this pattern going, what’s the fifth note of G?

Let’s take a look at the D-major scale now:

D(1) – E(2) – F#(3) – G(4) – A(5) – B(6) – C#(7) – D

If you look closely you’ll notice that for the D-major scale, we’ve again used all the notes from the G-major scale, but we’ve added an additional # – the C#.

An easy cheat to understand the circle of fifths is that every new scale will use all the notes from the previous scale, and add a new sharp for the 7th note of every scale. The best way to let this sink in is to try work out a few scales yourself. So, following the rules we’ve established, the next scale in the progression is the B-major scale, which should have three sharps in total.

Making Up a New Note

In english, we can spell certain words in different ways, and they’ll still mean the same thing. There is no difference in the meaning of “colour” vs “color”. In music, we call this an enharmonic.

You should by now know that C# is the same note as Db. So just because the notes are spelt differently, that doesn’t make them different notes.

For the cirlce of fifths (and for classical music), we sort of need to make up a note that doesn’t “really” exist. To understand this, let’s break down what C# means.

In essence, the # symbol means “plus one semi-tone”. So C# means “C plus one semi-tone”. Following that logic, B# (which doesn’t really exist) is, in fact, the enharmonic of C.

The F# Major Scale

Why is that important? The rules for writing scales is that for every 7-note major scale we want to use all the letters of the alphabet from A – G at least once, with no repeats.

If we write the F#-major scale using our usual rules, we see that we don’t use E, and that we use F twice (F and F#).

Normal rules: F# – G# – A# – B – C# – D# – F – F#

For us to follow the rule of using each letter once, we need to use an enharmonic and “make up” a note.

Enharmonic Creation: F# – G# – A# – B – C# – D# – E# – F#

Working out the Flats

The Circle of Fifths - Part one

Now you can work out all the scales from C – F#, it’s time to work on the flats.

First, we work on the Gb scale, which is exactly the same as the F# major scale but using flats instead. It’s important to note that the Gb scale also uses a “made up note”.

Gb – Ab – Bb – Cb – Db – Eb – F – Gb

Again, we can now follow the rule of fifths. What’s the fifth note of Gb? Yes, it is indeed Db. Now, as we work around the circle, each scale will have one fewer flat until we reach the F-major scale, which will only have one flat.

And if we look at the fifth note of F, we get C – which takes us full circle to the beginning again.

F (1) – G(2) – A(3) – Bb(4) – C(5) – D(6) – E(7) – F(1)

Noe that you know the circle of fifths, you are ready to move onto the modes and how to use them. If you want to know when new lessons in this series are added, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Like this article?

Don't miss out...

Get more like this sent to your inbox. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Linkdin
Share on Pinterest

You may also like