implement theory for more professionalism

Essentially this group is for the educational purposes of everyone wanting to produce better music in soundation with knowing basic theory. People who join this group will learn things about key signatures, keys, time signatures, chords etc.

Keep in mind, it is quite imperative to have a keyboard to learn all of these things.

LESSON 1

THE CIRCLE OF 5ths

Key signatures
The CIRCLE OF FIFTHS is a tool that is used for memorising the sharps and flats that are in a key signature. remember – every major scale has a relative minor scale within it. E.g. C major scale has no sharps (#) or flats (b) and to find the relative minor scale, from the C note on your keyboard, descend 3 semitones down, which means A minor is the relative minor of C major. (note) a semitone is one note above or below your initial note. e.g. a semitone up from the note D will be D#, and a tone would obviously be E. But remember with finding the relative minor of a major scale it’s always going to be 3 semitones down from whatever key it is.

Find an image of “the circle of fifths – major keys” on your browser then keep reading.

The key of C major is at the top in the middle. you already know it has no sharps or flats. Going around the circle clockwise from G shows all the major keys that have sharps in them. G has 1#, D has 2#‘s… all the way up to C#major which has 7 #’s.

Going anti-clockwise from F major shows all the major keys with flats in them. F major has 1b, Bb major has 2b’s etc.

There is no need to focus on C major as we already know it has no sharps or flats and we know it’s relative minor. But to memorise the sharps or flats in the other keys, we need to make up a sentence for the sharps in the keys from G major onwards, And for the flats in the keys of F major onwards.

(starting clockwise from G major)
To remember the key’s with sharps, which are G,D,A,E,B,F# and C#, you need to make up a sentence for yourself using these keys in order. It doesn’t need to make sense because it is for the purpose of remembering. E.g. Great Dragons Are Even Better Flying Circles.
You also need to remember that F# and C# are sharp keys but with practice you’ll be fine.

The sharps in these keys are:
(Key of G) 1# – F#
(Key of D) 2#‘s – F#,C#
(Key of A) 3#’s – F#,C#,G#
(Key of E) 4#‘s – F#,C#,G#,D#
(Key of B) 5#’s – F#,C#,G#,D#,A#
(Key of F#) 6#‘s – F#,C#,G#,D#,A#,E#
(Key of C#) 7#’s – F#,C#,G#,D#,A#,E#,B#

As said before you need to make a sentence for yourself to remember the sharps of the keys in order or you can use this example: Father Christmas Gets Drunk At Every Ball

Moving on, going anti-clockwise starting at F major. As said before, you need to come up with a sentence that you can use to remember the keys. I will not give you an example for this one.

On the other hand, the flats of the keys from F major onwards are:

(Key of F) 1b – Bb
(Key of Bb) 2b’s – Bb,Eb
(Key of Eb) 3b’s – Bb,Eb,Ab
(Key of Ab) 4b’s – Bb,Eb,Ab,Db
(Key of Db) 5b’s – Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb
(Key of Gb) 6b’s – Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Cb
(Key of Cb) 7b’s – Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Cb,Fb

You may be able to notice that the order of flats in these major keys spell out ‘BEADGCF’. It is much easier to remember this because the flats in the keys in the circle of 5ths spell out an actual word within it – “B E A D”. so you just need to remember “GCF”.