Sharp Keys and the Circle of fifths

Been away for a while, very busy, lots of new students.

Ok so you've looked at the previous posts and you know that the C Major scale has the notes C D E F G A B and C in. You also know that it has a neutral key signature (i.e. no sharps or flats).

But you now want to know which scales have which sharps or flats in the key signature and as part of the scale. Well there's two ways to do this. You can either memorise them all or, if you're like me, you can remember  a logical way to figure it all out.

So I'll give you the mechanism I use and the first couple of keys in each direction (sharp or flat) and leave you to work the rest out yourself (don't want to make it too easy).

So, let's look at sharp keys first. 

You take the 5th note of the scale and use that as the starting note of the next scale (hence the term circle of fifths). Using C Major as an example you get.

1 = C
2 = D
3 = E
4 = F
5 = G

So the new scale starts with a G, runs through the 8 notes back to G. The trick is that the 7th note of the new scale is sharpened by a semi tone, which gives you.

1 = G
2 = A
3 = B
4 = C
5 = D
6 = E
7 = F# (remember it has to be sharpened by a semi-tone or half-step)
8 = G

So there is the scale of G Major which has one sharp (F#) as it's key signature.

From the above then you can see that the next one (5th note in the key of G) is D which gives you.

1 = D
2 = E
3 = F#
4 = G
5 = A
6 = B
7 = C# (remember you have to sharpen the 7th note)
8 = D

Ok over to you, I'm sure you can figure the rest out.

Flat keys in the next post.