DON’T Learn The Circle Of Fifths Until You Know THIS! 

Thanks for sticking with it! Some folks want bubblegum content but I like to dissect it so you can see how seemingly disconnected topics connect. I appreciate your comment Lawrence. Means a ton!

You are correct…I’ve battled with saying the circle of 5th lives on the fretboard. It does. BUT practically it’s easier to just use the circle of 4ths. In my early teaching days I would have agreed. I haven’t found that much benefit thinking in 5ths. The natural way to see movement is from thicker strings to thinner strings. I get it but adding 5ths as a navigation tool hasn’t been effective as sticking to 4ths. It’s all about efficiency for me. I guessed someone might bring it up!

@@rickysguitar Fair enough. But let's say you stand the neck up vertical. Then, it's just a matter of looking to the left of a note to see its 5th, and to the right to see its 4th, just like the fretboard is on a circle. ;-)

Thank you all, I was looking for some explanation about living/not living on the fretboard

I have another lesson coming soon that really hammers home why 4ths is a better system for guitar. Saying that I'm not a 4ths purist (like Tom Quayle et al). I love that nasty Major 3rd tuning between the G and B string. Personally I don't use the circle of 5ths for guitar theory/visualisation. I don't think there's much value in it. I use it for composition which is when it becomes a valuable tool. Especially with string arrangements as those instruments are tuned in 5ths. Stick around for that lesson! I think you'll dig it!

Yes you can!

That's more of a history thing than a theory thing... it has to do with notation starting with voices then moving to other instruments. (Trust me, I had the same question! 😄)

You have to go back to Pythagoras and on into the middle ages to reveal the building blocks of western music.

Note names are just an agreement. You give a sound with a certain frequency a name so people can make music together and know what you are talking about when you toss around with note and chord names. Today most people agree that the a' should be 440 Hz. 200 years ago it was a tone with 409 Hz. About a semi tone lower than today. For the late baroque guys it was still the a'. Please note that our western scale starting with the c is quite new when it comes to the "most important" scale. When musicians started to describe music with music theory the natural minor scale was considered more as the "most important scale". It was simply another time with different taste of music. Thats why our minor scale starts with an A. It was logic for the people at this time to start their most important scale with the first letter of the alphabet. Now when you take the A minor scale and start it from the C you get our major C scale we all know. And regarding C right next to D, well, there are scales where you start a scale with a half step. Read about modes and you will understand (but you would start with C, Db in western mode scales). And there are many other scales "non western style" that have a different whole - half step distribution to it. There are scales with 8 notes or 12 or as many as you like. Some devide an octave into 24 steps. Music theory with all this whole step half step, scales and modes stuff is only there to describe what we like to hear and what "works" for our music. Music is not a product of music theory. Usually its the other way around.

​@@heinoherrlich3263Ok. Thank you for nice explanation.