Trying to dissect the Circle of Fifths can be daunting and complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Today, we’ll explain the Circle of Fifths in a very simple and easy-to-understand way.

So, what even is the Circle of Fifths? Well, the Circle of Fifths can be defined simply as “a way of organizing pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths.” Take a look at the visual above. Notice how we start with C at the top and each consecutive note, going clockwise, is a fifth apart. So we start with C, and G is a fifth away. Then we go to D, which is a fifth away from G, and so on until we loop back around to C.

What is a Fifth?

It is simply the interval between two notes that are 7 semitones apart.

Sister Chords

The Circle of Fifths can serve as a kind of “roadmap” to finding chord families and creating harmonies. So, let's say we’re writing a song and we’re starting with a C chord. We want to figure out what other chords will sound good in our progression. On the circle, the two chords on either side of the chord we’re working with will always sound good together. These are called our “Sister Chords”, and in this case they are F and G.

It doesn’t matter what order you play them in or which one you start on, they will always sound good together. This is true for all of our chords on the Circle. So, for example, if we’re starting with A flat, E flat and D flat are the Sister Chords and will always sound good together.

Cousin Chords

Alright, so, maybe now we want to take things a little bit further than just our two Sister Chords. Our chord family also extends to the next three chords on the circle, if we make them minor.

So, again if we’re starting with C, we have our two Sister Chords on either side, F and G. Now, the minor version of the next three chords after G are our Cousin Chords. In our C example, we’ve got D minor, A minor, and E minor as a Cousin Chords. We can throw any of these in our progression and they will sound good. Keep in mind, though, that just like an actual family, our cousins are a bit more distant than our sisters, so we typically use our Cousin Chords a bit more sparingly.

Power Notes

Now, this isn’t just useful for coming up with chord progressions. We can use this circle to help us come up with melodies. Of the notes we can choose from to create a melody, the circle shows us what “Power Notes” are guaranteed to sound good with our chord progression. The Power Notes are simply the next 4 notes on the circle. So, in our C example, our Power Notes would be C, G, D, A, and E.

The Circle of Fifths is a powerful and helpful tool in music theory. One could dive even deeper into this concept, but this is a good, basic way to understand and utilize it. Hope you learned something new!