Information contained in the "circle of 5th's"

[jbtsax]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent discussions revolving around the circle of 5th's (or 4th's as it were) [pun intended]😉 It would be fun to take the discussion in a slightly different direction and have members point out the important information that can be learned from this famous circle.

 

[BigMartin]

OK, to kick it off, how about tritones (opposite points)?

 

[MandyH]

I haven't read the other thread. I did a Music Theory MOOC over the summer, and for me everything comes back to the circle of 5ths.
Take any note centre (major / ionian) take a step clockwise (lydian) or take a step anticlockwise (mixolydian), another step(dorian) another step (natural minor - which also gives us harmonic minor - raised 7th; and melodic minor - raised 6th and 7th going up but not down; and Jazz melodic minor - raised 6th & 7th both up and down)
I learnt my circle of fifths by mnemonic - "Flats become easy after doing good," (flats in order) and "Go down and enter by force" (sharps in order)
the order of the sharps and flats is also learnt by mnemonic - Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle (sharps) or read backwards: Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father (Flats)
Take your major scale key signature and 3 steps back (anti-clockwise) give the key signature for the relative minor.

 

[spike]

Clockwise from 12 o'clock the Sharps increase 1 2 3 4 5 6/ at the tritone - Flats 6 5 4 3 2 1
and anti clockwise vice versa
Clockwise - circle of fifths
Anti-clockwise circle of fourths

 

[Chris]

251's going anti clockwise

 

[kevgermany]

Guys, please keep this serious. I've deleted a couple of unhelpful posts.

 

[trimmy]

Soz Kev, that cats a bad influence

 

[MandyH]

I have just realised that the alto/bari sax and tenor/sop sax pitch at adjacent keys on the circle of fifths - the tenor pitches one step anticlockwise from the alto, so if Alto plays C, Tenor plays F.

I have been given the duty of warming the sax choir up tonight as our MD will be a little late arriving, and I was trying to work out where each instrument pitched relative to concert pitch to ensure we were all playing the same scales!

 

[Colin the Bear]

Talk in concert and make them do the work.

 

[jbtsax]

Congrats Mandy. You have added one more to your already impressive list in answer to my question. I also agree with Colin. My 1st year band students in 6th grade all learned what note or scale to play when I gave them the concert name. That degree of perfection was helped immensely by the fact that the trombone section didn't have to transpose, and could just play the note I named.

Another point of interest about the circle is that the keys orchestras play in most frequently go clockwise, and the keys bands play in go counter clockwise. Those 3 (6 enharmonic) keys at the bottom are the ones nobody likes to play regardless of the group they are in. 🙂

 

[MandyH]

I haven't yet worked out all the concert / sax pitch relationships myself yet, but having spotted this, it might become easier to try to learn them.
These past 6 years have been a steep, steep learning curve, centred on the circle of fifths.
BTW - I also know that if you are playing scales, you can either play 2 octaves from the lower notes (ie from Bb to F#) or 1.5 octaves on higher notes (ie from G to A#) (normal range of the instrument) the "half" octave goes up to the note that is the next step clockwise on the circle of fifths. So if you are going to play a scale of A major, you can go up an octave then up to the E above the stave before coming down again - it sounds better to the ear and flows better to do that, than to go up to the F# then come down again.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Try doing your scale practice in concert. Play/read a piece you know in concert. It soon comes. It can get confusing though. I was given a chord chart in Eb and had to transpose it to concert to play it.