The circle of fifths and chord progressions

This post will you some ideas to help you create your own understanding of chord progressions and to give you a working knowledge of the circle of fifths. You can use the proven formula of I-IV-V to arrive at chord progressions like: G C D G or C F G C or D G A D or A D E A or E A B E. Also you can use the circle of fifths to generate your own individual chord progressions and to find how popular chord progressions have been invented.

If you know music theory, you will have encountered the circle of fifths. It is one of the basic elements of music theory. It is a picture of the chromatic scale and how the twelve tones relate to each other. Look at the letters on the circle, you will see that each number is the fifth note of the scale before it. Take the scale starting with the note G. The fifth note of the scale is D, which is the note after G on the circle of fifths.

So, you now have an idea of what you are looking at if you have a picture of the circle of fifths in front of you. If you write it out as a straight line, it goes: F C G D A E B Gb Ab Eb Bb. You may or may not know that Gb (G flat) is the same as F# (F sharp), Db is the same as C#, and so on.

Look at G in the circle. Do you know the chords in the key of G? They are C - the subdominant situated before the note G and D - the dominant, after G.

Around the nineteen twenties composers of popular music found that if you start with any tonic chord and jump forward along the circle of fifths as many steps as you like, then follow the circle backwards, you end up with a nice chord sequence. So, if you take C as the tonic fir the key you are working in and jump forward to, for example, A, then work your way back to C, you get C A D G C.

There are two things to remember. When you are working your way backwards to the tonic, you are actually doing it in fourths, not fifths, also, the notes of any of the chords you use might not be in the key you are using, but you will find that they still work well as accompaniment to tunes in that key.

Okay, so working between C and A you can have a chord progression that looks like:
C A7 D7 G7 C or instead of using sevenths to work back to C you can have minor chords: C Am Dm Gm C.

Let us try another example, this time going ahead by a rather large five steps: C B7 E7 A7 D7 G7 C.

You can take as may steps ahead as you like, just do some experimenting to see what chord sequences you come up with. After a little practice with this method of chord generation, you will be able to work out the chord progression of songs you hear, just by listening to them.

This Youtube guitar lesson video gives us more info on finding a song’s key by ear.