Circle Of Fifths On Piano

See the Circle of Fifths in action. This is a great little tool that shows you the circle of fifths as you would play it on a piano keyboard. Use your mouse to click around or use your computer’s keyboard for interaction. A rotating wheel of musical keys combined with an interactive piano give you a clear visual representation of how scales is built and what notes makes up each key signature.

To begin, engage with the circle chart on the left-hand side of the screen. Here, you’ll find a representation of the twelve major keys ordered according to how they relate musically. Simply tap one of the buttons around the outside ring and the matching major scale will light up on the piano keyboard beneath it. The red note is the root note; the other notes of the scale are illuminated in orange. In the information box, you can also view how many sharps/flats there is in the chosen key.

How to Use the Circle of Fifths Tool

This is a regular clockwise version of the wheel illustrating the harmonic progression. A single step clockwise is up a perfect fifth, adding a sharp to the key signature. A single step back (counter-clockwise) is down a fifth, adding a flat. It’s designed this way so you can easily see the similarities in note content between neighbouring keys. Each major option has the inner label that names its matching relative minor key, containing the same notes but beginning from a different degree.

You can also listen to the tones that correspond to your selection by using piano keyboard below. To play the sound of any key just click it (black or white). You can also play the notes more naturaly using your computer keyboard. Just tab around the interface and focus on the piano keys. Then press the space bar or enter to hit the keys. It is a much more natural and quick way of playing different than having to click each individual note.

Play Scale plays the current scale in an automatic loop from bottom to top and then repeats downwards. Good if you are listening and want to check what you’re hearing against what you’re seeing on the screen. The Play Chord button sounds the tonic chord (triad) of the current scale. This provides you with the harmonic centre of whatever scale you’ve chosen. Both buttons fire up the audio engine straight away, so make sure your volume is turned up first.

The bottom right-hand side control is for the master volume, this will set the volume for everything you play from the widget (including chords, scales and individual notes). Set it to something that you’re happy with then try playing some chords without blowing yourself away. When you adjust the volume, you can switch key without interrupting the playback settings or selection in use.

The interface can be expanded by clicking on the Fullscreen button if viewing in a browser on your computer screen. Doing this clears out all other page content. It enlarges the area for the keyboard and the wheel, making them bigger and the keys easier to touch or click. To revert back to the usual view just click on the same button or hit your browser’s exit command.

For those looking for a bit of guidance on all that’s offered here, just click the How to Play button found in the top header for the Help panel. This provides a brief explanation of the interface and controls. It covers how the wheel works, the keyboard controls, and what everything on screen represents. Once you’re familiar, simply click the button again to close it out and leave yourself plenty of space to work through some exercises.

Take your time circling and listen to the change of key signature for each movement. You’ll notice how closely linked the neighbouring keys are across the wheel and how most of the piano notes remains unchanged. As you travel from one space to the other it emphasises the subtle change of tonal colour that occurs when a composer moves between related keys. Experiment with playing chords and scales in different orders to build familiarity with each key. Using the relative minor labels will also allow you to create similar sounds using the same set of notes.

In this way it closes the gap between knowing about keys and being able to hear them. You can try out lots of variations very quickly as the tool updates immediately. To use the widget, don’t expect to master it all in one go. If it’s too much to see all at once, try breaking down the circle into quadrants. Begin where you feel comfortable such as G major or C major and work outwards from there. This process strengthens the pattern recognition and makes moving onto the trickier signatures easier.

It’s also meant to work equally well on all types of devices thanks to its design. It’s got the same controls no matter if you’re using it on your desktop, laptop, or tablet. Its touch targets are large enough for comfortabley tapping, while it’s also keyboard navigable for those who don’t want to use their mouse at all. There are no time restrictions either; feel free to tinker around with every single key as long as you’d like.

It’s a valuable resource to get to know before composing music or performing on your instrument. If you’re studying some new theoretical ideas then it’s a good place to refer back to for scale degrees and key signatures. You can hear what is displayed in real-time which strengthens that link in your mind too. With regular use, these relationships becomes learned over time. If it’s all sounding like a bit too much, come back here anytime and quickly refresh your memory with some tonal relationship reminders.

This interactive representation of the circle of fifths has no right or wrong answer so feel free to experiment as much as possible. Repetition and curiosity are the name of the game when learning about these essential elements of music. Go ahead and choose some keys, see what you hear, and notice the similarities and differences between each of the scales.