Guide · Guitar theory
How to use the circle of fifths on guitar
The All twelve keys arranged in a circle, each a 5th above the last. Neighbouring keys differ by one sharp or flat. puts the twelve keys in a ring so that neighbours share six of their seven notes. On guitar you use it to find the chords in a key, pick chords that sound good together, find a key's The major and minor keys that share all seven notes and the same key signature, such as C major and A minor. and move smoothly from one key to another.
How the circle is laid out
Going clockwise, each key is a fifth higher than the last and adds one sharp; going anticlockwise, each one adds a flat.
Click a chord to hear it · drag the dial to change keyTap a chord to hear it · swipe across the dial to change key
Use the Key slider to turn the dial. In the chord grid, arrow keys move, Enter plays a chord, Shift and Enter makes it the key, digits 1 to 7 play the chords of the key, and Escape stops playback.
Selected chord · I
CmajorTonic
- C1
- E3
- G5
Home — progressions come to rest here.
Outer: major · Middle: relative minor · Inner: diminished (vii°)
C major sits at the top with no sharps or flats. One step clockwise is G major, with one sharp, F♯. One more step gives D major; D major has two sharps: F♯ and C♯. One step anticlockwise from C is F major, with one flat, B♭. Keep going either way and you meet in the bottom of the circle, where three positions have two spellings that sound the same, such as F♯ major and G♭ major.
The outer ring holds the major keys. The inner ring holds their relative minors: the minor key that uses the same notes. A minor sits inside C, E minor inside G, and so on all the way round.
On the fretboard a fifth is easy to find: from a The note a chord is named after and built up from. C is the root of C, Cm and C7. on the low E, A or D string it is on the next string up, two The metal strips across the neck, and the spaces between them. Each fret raises a string by one half step. higher, the shape of a Just the root and the 5th, often with the root doubled: C5 is C and G. With no 3rd it is neither major nor minor, which keeps it clear under distortion.. The root and fifth of every power chord are neighbours on the circle, which is why guitarists meet it so often.
Find the chords in any key
Take a key and its two neighbours: those three major chords are I, IV and V, and the three minor chords on the inner ring beside them are ii, iii and vi.
For C major, the window is F, C and G on the outer ring, with Dm, Am and Em inside them. That gives six of the seven chords at a glance. The seventh, B°, is A chord with a minor 3rd and a flattened 5th, written °. It sounds tense, and is the vii° chord of a major key.; it is the one you will use least. All seven together: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and B°.
Turn the window one step clockwise and you have G major: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em and F♯°. Nothing else changes; the pattern of major, minor and diminished chords is the same in every major key. That is why a song you know in one key is easy to play in another once you think in numbers rather than chord names.
The chord chart for every key lists all twenty-four keys the same way, and each key's page lets you hear its chords.
Build progressions that sound right
Chords next to each other on the circle sound smooth together, and moving anticlockwise, falling a fifth each time, sounds like coming home.
Jazz ii–V–I
ii7 – V7 – Imaj7
- Dm7
- G7
- Cmaj7
Each chord falls a fifth to the next — a walk anticlockwise around the circle.
Heard in Autumn Leaves, Fly Me to the Moon
The strongest pull in music is from the V chord back to I, and on the circle that is a single step anticlockwise. Chain more of those steps and you get a progression that keeps resolving.
The jazz ii–V–I is exactly that walk. In C major it is Dm7, G7 and Cmaj7: each chord falls a fifth to the next. Pop music leans on the same neighbourhood: I, IV, V and vi all sit inside the window around the key.
When you write a song, start on the key's chord, wander to a neighbour or two, and come back anticlockwise. It is hard to make that sound wrong.
Find the relative minor
Every major key shares its notes with one minor key, its The major and minor keys that share all seven notes and the same key signature, such as C major and A minor., which sits on the inner ring right beside it.
The relative minor of C major is A minor; the relative minor of G major is E minor. Both keys of a pair use the same The sharps or flats written at the start of each line of music, telling you which notes the key changes. and the same seven chords; what changes is which chord feels like home.
This matters on guitar because many songs move between the two. A verse in A minor and a chorus in C major is a classic lift. The relative minor guide shows how to find it anywhere on the neck.
Change key smoothly
The closer two keys are on the circle, the more chords they share and the more natural it sounds to move between them.
C major and G major are neighbours: they share 4 chords, C, Em, G and Am. Any of those can be the pivot: a chord that belongs to both keys, so the ear accepts the new key without a jolt. Keys on opposite sides of the circle share almost nothing, and a move between them sounds dramatic.
A common move between sections is one step clockwise, from C to G, or one step anticlockwise to the key of the IV chord, from C to F. F major and G major are the two nearest keys to C. The circle of fifths page plays a Changing key within a piece of music, so a different note becomes home. between any two keys so you can hear the difference distance makes.
Practise with the circle
Play a short progression in one key, then move it one step round the circle, until you have played it in all twelve.
Start with I–IV–V–I in C, then G, then D, and keep going. Each new key changes only one note, so your hands learn the neck a little at a time instead of all at once.
Saying the chord names as you play them helps the spelling stick: in D major you are playing D, G and A, and the scale has F♯ and C♯. After a week of this, finding the chords in a key you have never played becomes a matter of seconds.