Key Signatures - Circle of Fourths and Fifths - ANSI A

There is a lot of information in traditional Key Signatures. Unlocking the principles in this circle leads to a better understanding of music work.

A key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating the notes that are to be consistently played higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes. Key signatures, generally written immediately after the clef at the beginning of a line of musical notation. Each major and minor key has an associated key signature that sharpens or flattens the notes which are used in its scale.

What The Heck Can I Do With It?

The Circle of Fourths/Fifths, is the order of the sharps (♯) and flats (♭) that are the 15 major and their relative minor keys that comprise the majority of songs and chord progressions that we encounter. Giving us a way to memorize the order the major scales and their derived modes. If there is a secret decoder ring, this is one of them.

Here are a few ways to tackle memorizing this order of keys.

Order of Sharps (♯) Keys

• C G D A E B F# C#

Order of Sharps (♯) in the major/relative minor keys: F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯ A♯ E♯ B♯ C♯. It goes from no sharps for the key of C Major to all seven notes sharped for the key of C♯ Major .

Order of Flats (♯)

• B E A D G C F

Order of Flats (♭) in the major/relative minor keys: B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ C♭ F♭. It goes from no flats for the key of C Major to all seven notes flatted for the key of C♭ Major .

So three keys are relatively simple to memorize: C, C♯, and C♭.

Memorize Fourths first: C F B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ C♭, There is the works Bead in there.

Then go the other way with fifths: C G D A E B F# C#. There is bead(deab) again, but backwards.

Memorize the three Enharmonic Equivalent keys: C♯/D♭, F♯/G♭, B, C♭.

Then beyond this, which is great for reading and writing music. Beyond that is one to Harmonic Analysis for Scale Selection and Chord Substitution – where this is a valuable tool.