Should I learn the Circle of Fifths and Major Scale Notes?

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Anyone tell me the practical benefits of knowing the Circle of fifths and the Major Scales Notes off by heart?
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  • bbill335bbill335 Frets: 1368
    Why not 
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    edited January 2017
    YES.
    Next question.

    Let me use an analogy to English.

    Do need sentence learn stuff speak english good get point over?
    (Do you need to learn how to construct sentences in order to speak or write English well enough to be able to be full understood? Or could you get by with less knowledge provided you can make your point?)

    The circle of fifths is an important aspect to music theory.
    It isn't 100% necessary but it isn't hard and it provides a framework which allows you to communicate musically in a more eloquent and elegant way.
    You can get by just knowing the bare minimum , sure- but it will give you a deeper understand and allow you to be more well rounded.
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  • BarneyBarney Frets: 614
    A lot of chords move in 4ths or 5ths 1 to 4 chords in a blues...251 progresion eg..Dm G7 C.ect.its a logical way to practice things 
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    edited January 2017
    I think once you know the Co5, you couldn't imagine not knowing it, it's just too fundamental. It basically underpins everything else about how music actually works as it is the framework that describes similar keys and natural progressions. Everyone who gets to understand it will build a better appreciation of music, and also a better ability to compose and play. It's like knowing the alphabet or the Newtonian laws. It's hard to overstate its importance.
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • beed84beed84 Frets: 2403
    Learn it and you'll benefit from it. Learn the circle of fourths too. Knowledge is power, therefore you can only be a better musician if you study this area and other theory too.
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  • beed84 said:
    Learn it and you'll benefit from it. Learn the circle of fourths too...
    I just think of the cycle of 4th or 5ths as anticlockwise or clockwise rotations of the same representation.
    It's not a competition.
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  • ManneManne Frets: 7
    Check out the circle of fifths in terms of tetrachords: major tetrachord -> major scale -> circle of fifths.  
    major tetrachord is a series of four notes with the interval pattern tone – tone – semitone (2-2-b2).
    A major scale is a combination of two major tetrachords separated by a major second (2). Find detailed information here.




     

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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    Manne said:
    Check out the circle of fifths in terms of tetrachords: major tetrachord -> major scale -> circle of fifths.  
    A major tetrachord is a series of four notes with the interval pattern tone – tone – semitone (2-2-b2).
    A major scale is a combination of two major tetrachords separated by a major second (2). Find detailed information here.

    No, don't do this.
    Just learn the regular circle of 5ths before tackling something like this ^^^.
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  • I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
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  • BarneyBarney Frets: 614
    I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
    I thought i did :)
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
    As I said above- do you think there is any advantage in knowing how to construct sentences, or just know a bunch of random English words and try to form them into some kind of order?

    Reharmonsing, transposing, playing changes are all much easier if you know the notes of the scales and the Co5.
    It is the beginning of a musical education though- not an end in itself.
    You can't just learn them and go 'ok that's me done'.

    Think of it like driving a car- you can know what a gear stick does, and an accelerator and maybe you can potter around a car par but does that mean you are safe to drive on the road.
    Then to drive for a living?
    Then to race cars for a living?

    Music is a lifelong pursuit and learning scales and the Co5 is the very first step.
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  • RolandRoland Frets: 8590
    Learn the notes - yes. You might find the best route is to learn the notes of the common keys, starting with C and Am, and then adding other keys.

    The benefits of learning this is that you immediately know which notes from the major and minor scales you can play against any chord. You also start to wonder about the notes that you aren't playing, and what they do. Learning them opens up other scales. The ones which have fancy names like mixolydian. It helps you learn notes in context, and understanding what they do for the music, and helps you avoid running up and down scales in your playing. You might gather that I've not found the circle of xyz useful, nor modal theory, because they lead you to follow the theory, not what the music needs.
    Tree recycler, and guitarist with  https://www.undercoversband.com/.
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  • BarneyBarney Frets: 614
    I suppose it depends how far you want to go with things as well.....ideally you should know the note names plus interval it is  from the root note ...for all sorts of things inc building chords ...modes ..targeting various degrees...knowing what note changes to make it maj or min in all positions ...what  9th is ...sus 4 ect ...its never ending whatever the level of a player iff thats how you want to look at it

    On the other hand

    Learn the standard pentatonic postion...create some cool sounding runs and learn notes on the bottom E string and you will be able to adapt for different keys and you will be able to after a while play some blues type of thing ...iff thats all you want from guitar that would be fine....add a few chords and learn some songs .....you probably wouldnt improve much after that though

    I would rather have both ..theory is good but useless iff its not applied..it really needs learned then used ...
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    edited January 2017
    I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
    The main thing it does is tell you for any I chord, what is its V chord. So if you are in C, the V chord is the next one clockwise, the G. It also tells you the IV chord, by going anticlockwise from the C - ie the F. 

    ie, it rearranges all the notes so that instead of being alphabetical, they are in series of IV on the left, V on the right, and I in the middle. 

    It's a bit like if you had a set of colours and you had them in alphabetical order - blue, green indigo, orange, red, violet, yellow - that's not really much use; what you really need is for them to be in order of wavelength - red orange yellow green blue indigo violet - and hey presto you can now use them to predict the colours on the left and right side of any chosen colour in a rainbow, which is much more useful.

    That's the first thing it does.

    The next thing that it helps with is this: it tells you that the major scale of the adjacent key clockwise round the circle uses exactly the same notes, with the exception that one of the notes is raised. The note that gets raised is the SEVENTH note, the "leading note". So if you start with C major (which has no sharps or flats), the next clockwise key is G major, which must have one sharp. And counting up 7 from G is F. So G major has an F#. As you continue cycling clockwise, those sharps accumulate, so the next one, D, has 2 sharps - the F# and a new sharp, D's 7th note, which is C#. And so on. 

    Conversely it also tells you that if you go to the next anticlockwise key, you have to lower a note to get the new key's major scale. The note which has to get lowered is the FOURTH note - the 'subdominant' note. So if you start with G major (which has an F#), and go anticlockwise back to C, you have to flatten the 4th note to get C major. The 4th note from C is F, so that F# has to be depressed to an F natural, and hey presto you've got C major, like you started with. As you cycle anticlockwise from a key with lots of sharps, the sharps peel off one by one till you reach C, then the flats start to accumulate.

    So if you go one more step anticlockwise from C, you reach F. Counting 4 notes up from F, you get B. B natural is in the scale of C, but for F major you have to lower it - hence F major has a Bb as its 4th note. And from F (which has that B flat), the next one anticlockwise is Bb itself, and the 4th note from Bb is E, which you need to flatten; so Bb major has two flats - Bb and Eb. See, the flats accumulate. 
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • Barney said:
    I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
    I thought i did :)
    Sorry mate you did thank you
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  • notanonnotanon Frets: 604
    edited January 2017
    Shed loads of info as @Viz says. Other uses as well - some images have the relative minor as an inner circle and lots of other information. For example look at the standard wiki page for circle of fifths - it shows the musical staves and the order in which the sharps or flats would be drawn, . . .  So useful I recreated the Wiki diagram (the wiki image is not mathematically precise) and made a clock for myself:

    http://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah105/UKGuitarPlayer/Misc/CofFifthsClock_zpstp4nbhhn.jpg

    That was my first version. I found so useful I gave some clocks to friends and family that are into music. That was the crappiest of the ones I made. I still have the Photoshop file kept safe :-)

    @Manne awesome C of Fifths!!!
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    viz said:
    I appreciate all advice, but can anyone give specific examples of how the knowledge of it can help? Thanks in advance
    The main thing it does is tell you for any I chord, what is its V chord. So if you are in C, the V chord is the next one clockwise, the G. It also tells you the IV chord, by going anticlockwise from the C - ie the F. 

    ie, it rearranges all the notes so that instead of being alphabetical, they are in series of IV on the left, V on the right, and I in the middle. 

    It's a bit like if you had a set of colours and you had them in alphabetical order - blue, green indigo, orange, red, violet, yellow - that's not really much use; what you really need is for them to be in order of wavelength - red orange yellow green blue indigo violet - and hey presto you can now use them to predict the colours on the left and right side of any chosen colour in a rainbow, which is much more useful.

    That's the first thing it does.

    The next thing that it helps with is this: it tells you that the major scale of the adjacent key clockwise round the circle uses exactly the same notes, with the exception that one of the notes is raised. The note that gets raised is the SEVENTH note, the "leading note". So if you start with C major (which has no sharps or flats), the next clockwise key is G major, which must have one sharp. And counting up 7 from G is F. So G major has an F#. As you continue cycling clockwise, those sharps accumulate, so the next one, D, has 2 sharps - the F# and a new sharp, D's 7th note, which is C#. And so on. 

    Conversely it also tells you that if you go to the next anticlockwise key, you have to lower a note to get the new key's major scale. The note which has to get lowered is the FOURTH note - the 'subdominant' note. So if you start with G major (which has an F#), and go anticlockwise back to C, you have to flatten the 4th note to get C major. The 4th note from C is F, so that F# has to be depressed to an F natural, and hey presto you've got C major, like you started with. As you cycle anticlockwise from a key with lots of sharps, the sharps peel off one by one till you reach C, then the flats start to accumulate.

    So if you go one more step anticlockwise from C, you reach F. Counting 4 notes up from F, you get B. B natural is in the scale of C, but for F major you have to lower it - hence F major has a Bb as its 4th note. And from F (which has that B flat), the next one anticlockwise is Bb itself, and the 4th note from Bb is E, which you need to flatten; so Bb major has two flats - Bb and Eb. See, the flats accumulate. 
    One other thing - you question whether you should learn all the major scale notes - there's very little to learn in fact - just remember the circle of 5ths - CGDAEB for sharps 0-5, and FBEAD (actually F Bb Eb Ab Db) for flats 1-5, and you're done. The mnemonic Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle tells you the actual sharps in order, and the same mnemonic backwards (Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles's Father) tells you the flats in order. 
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • nickpnickp Frets: 182
    edited January 2017
    why not combine them - practice the major scale in all keys and use the cycle of fifths to choose the next key.  I have just learned the major scale all the way up the neck, plus the intervals, plus the chords.....it is the key to unlocking all sorts of shit that I really couldn't start to think about until I got this basic bit.

    it's easy to think - I don't use the major scale.  but I've found that once I learned it then i wonder how the fuck I got this far without learning it!

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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    edited January 2017
    nickp said:
    why not combine them - practice the major scale in all keys and use the cycle of fifths to choose the next key.  I have just learned the major scale all the way up the neck, plus the intervals, plus the chords.....it is the key to unlocking all sorts of shit that I really couldn't start to think about until I got this basic bit.



    Regarding going round the Co5, You can use Hey Joe to go clockwise nearly halfway, then play a B chord as a sort of linking dominant chord, then repeat hey Joe, but starting on Gb (as though playing it in Bb), then finishing with another linking chord (F). Thus you've gone all the way round. 

    Or to go anticlockwise, try "Brother can you Spare a Dime", playing it in Ab minor. That's the longest sequence of 4ths I've found. Start on Abm and the 4ths start from the F. So that's Abm F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B (and then F to finish the line). That run from F to B gets you all the way round the circle till you meet the last chord of Hey Joe (the E). So you've covered the whole Co5 with two songs.
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • axisusaxisus Frets: 28280
    I inadvertently started off with the square of sevenths and I've struggled with theory ever since.
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