This week what grabbed my attention was our music theory class.  I have had many music classes in the past, so I remembered a lot of what Mr. Dave taught us, but one thing that I didn’t know was the circle of fifths.  I have heard about it, but never learned it.  At first glance I was totally confused, but as he explained it I began to understand it.  It is a great formula for knowing and learning key signatures and somethings that I will most certainly use and hopefully remember.

I learned key signatures a bit differently.  The way I learned I pretty much had to memorize each key.  The circle of fifths makes it possible to learn without memorizing.  It is a sequence of key signatures that are spaced equally apart.  All that is required is to know the whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half pattern.  Once this is known all key signatures can be determined. On the outside of the circle is the major keys and on the inside are their relative minors.  Rotating clockwise around the circle the 5th interval can be determined. Moving counter clockwise the 4th interval can be determined.  Learning to read the circle is the difficult part, but once it is known it is a piece of cake.

Sasha