Circle Of Fifths Diagram

The Circle of Fifths is a visual representation of all twelve keys in music. This widget turns it into a fun interactive audio tool.

You can click or tap around on the Circle with your mouse to explore the keys, or use your computer keyboard to navigate and select keys. The idea are to combine visual learning with sound to help you understand how diatonic chords relate to each other.

How to Use the Circle of Fifths Tool

All twelve key are presented in circle wheel. The major keys is on the outside ring and then their relative minors are on the inside ring. Both have same key signature.

Simply click on a section of the wheel which is the segment you’d like to choose. The widget will highlight your selection and plays the tonic chord for that key so you can hear what it sounds like.

The wheel’s also accessible via the keyboard if that’s more your jam: Pressing the Tab key will jump the wheel’s focus from one section of keys to the next. Then hitting Spacebar or Enter will highlight whichever segment’s in focus, which plays the sound and updates the look just like a mouse click would, providing a real way of moving throughout circle without a pointing device.

The key signature for the key that is selected appear below the wheel. Here you can also see how many flats or sharps is in this key, shown visually on a staff. Moving clockwise around the circle adds sharps, while moving counter-clockwise add flats. It then gives a visual reminder of theory behind how the keys relate to each other in circle of fifths.

At the bottom, we have a grid of buttons representing the diatonic chords within the chosen key. The word diatonic means naturaly belonging to the key. In other words, there are seven chord that come from each key. Each button has the chord’s name and its roman numeral written on it. When you click on one of these buttons you will hear that chord played alone so you can realy listen to the harmonic building blocks of the key.

Further up toward the top, there’s also a volume slider that controls overall volume of the widget itself. That’s useful if you’re sharing same space with others or simply prefer things at a lower volume while you listen. It won’t impact anything else on your page, just the audio coming from this particular widget, but it offers more detailed control over your audio output.

This is the help panel that acts as an instant guide to the interface. To turn it on, click the How to play button. From here, you get a summary of the controls plus a brief explanation of the key layout and major/minor keys. If you forget what the inner ring is or want a reminder of how the circle operates then it’s a good place to look.

The widget can be expanded to take up the full screen. Simply click on the Fullscreen button to do so. It provides more room to display chord grids and key signatures clearly. The same button will return you to the normal view. Or, you can also use the exit command from your browser.

To get an idea of how the triads is built in that key centre, try picking a key and run your way from bottom to top through the diatonic chords. For each of the positions, click on the inside ring as well as the outside to listen to the difference between major and minor keys. Even though it is the same key signature, you’ll notice that chord qualities changes.

Try playing around with neighboring keys on the wheel. As you may have noticed, many of the notes is shared by the keys adjacent to one another. These will therefore sound very close to each other. It’s why you commonly hear songs move from one key to another that is next to it in the circle of fifths. You’ll also learn more about how keys relate to one another through this experience.

Now try playing on the wheel to develop an intuitive understanding of harmony. Listen through the chords, click around and observe the signatures. It is not only good to look at but also a practical way to train your ear and study. You should of have fun exploring the music this way.