Stephen Calder
2005-12-01 22:37:51 UTC
Circle of Fifths as a chord progression generator
The circle has a variety of uses, and one of them is in constructing
chord progressions. Let's have a look at the cycle written out:
F C G D A E B Gb Db Ab Eb Bb (then back to the start) F C G etc
You can remember the sequence with a mnemonic, for example Fanny Crosby
Goes Daffy After Eating Bananas (with the Goes Daffy up to the end
repeated and flats added).
Remember that Gb=F# and so on. If you look at where G is in the cycle,
you will notice that the three most important chords in the key of G,
are grouped together with the subdominant (C) on one side and the
dominant (D) on the other. The same applies to any other key, for
example, C, in which key the most important chords are F, C and G.
In the beginning of the jazz era, it was also discovered that the cycle
of fifths led to some pretty interesting, and at the time, novel chord
progressions. The idea is to start on the tonic chord of the key you're
in (let's say it's C) and jump as many times forward as you want around
the cycle to another chord, let's suppose we decided it would be A. Now
you follow the cycle backwards (making it a cycle of fourths) and you
get, for example,
C | A7 | D7 | G7 | C|
I don't know if that sequence is familiar to you, but it turns up in
lots of songs, for example:
Missed the Saturday [C]dance, heard they crowded the [A7]floor
Couldn't bear it with[D7]out you, [G7] don't get around much any[C]more.
[G] [E7] No girl made has got a shade on sweet Georgia Brown
[A7] Crazy feet that dance so neat has sweet Georgia Brown
[D7] they all sigh and wanna die for Sweet Georgia Brown
[D7] I tell you just [G] why [D7] you know I don't [G] lie
Notice that sevenths are used for the run back to the start, and this is
often (but not always) the case. In these examples we jumped three steps
forward on the wheel, but you can jump just two, or as many as you want.
The longest jump in a cycle-of-fifths progression of this type I have
seen is in another standard, "Someone to Watch Over Me." Also in the key
of C, where the song jumps five steps to B(7) before making its way
round the circle backwards to C:
[C]Although he [F]may not be the man some
Girls think of as [C]handsome
To [B7]my heart he [E7] carries the [A7]key [D7] [G7] [C]
An interesting point about these progressions is that you can write
melodies around them without ever leaving the diatonic scale of the
tonic key (C, in this case). Another way of saying this is that although
the chords themselves may contain notes that are not in the key of C,
the melodies they accompany often use only the notes in the C scale.
The common progression C-Am-Dm-G-C used in innumerable 60s hits (eg the
Four Seasons' Sherry) is also a variation on the cycle of fifths, using
minor chords instead of sevenths for the A and D.
Once you know about this common progression, you start seeing variations
on it everywhere and you begin to see how prevalent it is in 20th
century popular music. This can help when trying to work out chord
progressions by ear. The cycle is something you can try when all else
fails. Eventually you become familiar with the sound of a
cycle-of-fifths progression. But beware. They don't all sound the same
by any means. Depending on how far you jump and whether you use sevenths
or minor chords to get back, and how often you do it, these progressions
can sound surprisingly different from each other, which is probably one
reason why they became so popular. Almost every major pop and rock
composer, including the Beatles, used the cycle of fifths to generate
chord progressions.
Some other examples:
Dancing Cheek to Cheek Gmaj7 E7 Am7 D7 Gmaj7
Crazy C A7 Dm G7 C
All of Me G B7 E7 Am B7 Em A7 Am7 D7 G
Paul McCartney, not without precedent, radically changed the nature of
the progression by going from the tonic, not to the chord three steps
away but the chord based on the note a semitone below, then stepping up
a half-tone to the cycle before continuing, in this song:
[F]Honey Pie, you are making me [Db]crazy, [D7] I'm in love but I'm
[G7lazy [C7] So won't you please come [F]home.
It's called the cycle, or circle of fifths, because the interval from C
to G (one step forward on the circle) is known as a fifth (derived from
the fact that G is the fifth note in the key of C, counting C as 1). A
fifth (also known as a perfect fifth, not sharpened to an augmented
fifth or flattened to a diminished fifth) is always 7 semitones.
Going in the other direction (right to left or counterclockwise), we are
moving in steps of a perfect fourth (five semitones) at a time, so the
cycle of fifths becomes a cycle of fourths.
The circle has a variety of uses, and one of them is in constructing
chord progressions. Let's have a look at the cycle written out:
F C G D A E B Gb Db Ab Eb Bb (then back to the start) F C G etc
You can remember the sequence with a mnemonic, for example Fanny Crosby
Goes Daffy After Eating Bananas (with the Goes Daffy up to the end
repeated and flats added).
Remember that Gb=F# and so on. If you look at where G is in the cycle,
you will notice that the three most important chords in the key of G,
are grouped together with the subdominant (C) on one side and the
dominant (D) on the other. The same applies to any other key, for
example, C, in which key the most important chords are F, C and G.
In the beginning of the jazz era, it was also discovered that the cycle
of fifths led to some pretty interesting, and at the time, novel chord
progressions. The idea is to start on the tonic chord of the key you're
in (let's say it's C) and jump as many times forward as you want around
the cycle to another chord, let's suppose we decided it would be A. Now
you follow the cycle backwards (making it a cycle of fourths) and you
get, for example,
C | A7 | D7 | G7 | C|
I don't know if that sequence is familiar to you, but it turns up in
lots of songs, for example:
Missed the Saturday [C]dance, heard they crowded the [A7]floor
Couldn't bear it with[D7]out you, [G7] don't get around much any[C]more.
[G] [E7] No girl made has got a shade on sweet Georgia Brown
[A7] Crazy feet that dance so neat has sweet Georgia Brown
[D7] they all sigh and wanna die for Sweet Georgia Brown
[D7] I tell you just [G] why [D7] you know I don't [G] lie
Notice that sevenths are used for the run back to the start, and this is
often (but not always) the case. In these examples we jumped three steps
forward on the wheel, but you can jump just two, or as many as you want.
The longest jump in a cycle-of-fifths progression of this type I have
seen is in another standard, "Someone to Watch Over Me." Also in the key
of C, where the song jumps five steps to B(7) before making its way
round the circle backwards to C:
[C]Although he [F]may not be the man some
Girls think of as [C]handsome
To [B7]my heart he [E7] carries the [A7]key [D7] [G7] [C]
An interesting point about these progressions is that you can write
melodies around them without ever leaving the diatonic scale of the
tonic key (C, in this case). Another way of saying this is that although
the chords themselves may contain notes that are not in the key of C,
the melodies they accompany often use only the notes in the C scale.
The common progression C-Am-Dm-G-C used in innumerable 60s hits (eg the
Four Seasons' Sherry) is also a variation on the cycle of fifths, using
minor chords instead of sevenths for the A and D.
Once you know about this common progression, you start seeing variations
on it everywhere and you begin to see how prevalent it is in 20th
century popular music. This can help when trying to work out chord
progressions by ear. The cycle is something you can try when all else
fails. Eventually you become familiar with the sound of a
cycle-of-fifths progression. But beware. They don't all sound the same
by any means. Depending on how far you jump and whether you use sevenths
or minor chords to get back, and how often you do it, these progressions
can sound surprisingly different from each other, which is probably one
reason why they became so popular. Almost every major pop and rock
composer, including the Beatles, used the cycle of fifths to generate
chord progressions.
Some other examples:
Dancing Cheek to Cheek Gmaj7 E7 Am7 D7 Gmaj7
Crazy C A7 Dm G7 C
All of Me G B7 E7 Am B7 Em A7 Am7 D7 G
Paul McCartney, not without precedent, radically changed the nature of
the progression by going from the tonic, not to the chord three steps
away but the chord based on the note a semitone below, then stepping up
a half-tone to the cycle before continuing, in this song:
[F]Honey Pie, you are making me [Db]crazy, [D7] I'm in love but I'm
[G7lazy [C7] So won't you please come [F]home.
It's called the cycle, or circle of fifths, because the interval from C
to G (one step forward on the circle) is known as a fifth (derived from
the fact that G is the fifth note in the key of C, counting C as 1). A
fifth (also known as a perfect fifth, not sharpened to an augmented
fifth or flattened to a diminished fifth) is always 7 semitones.
Going in the other direction (right to left or counterclockwise), we are
moving in steps of a perfect fourth (five semitones) at a time, so the
cycle of fifths becomes a cycle of fourths.
--
Stephen
Lennox Head, Australia
Stephen
Lennox Head, Australia