The Circle of Fifths Chord Progression EXPLAINED 

It’s been scientifically proven that the best way to learn music theory is while watching Nintendo switch sports gameplay

5:56 that is a GREAT observation!!

And then there's Mild High Club - Homage, where the scale degrees are LITERALLY IN THE LYRICS for some reason

RE: the "My Ordinary Life" example, that song has this chord progression because it heavily samples the soundtrack of an anime called Nichijou: My Ordinary Life. Specifically the song "Koigokoro wa Dangan mo Yawarakakusuru" which means "Love softens even bullets". I highly recommend checking out the rest of the soundtrack too, there are a lot of gems to be found there!

punched my laptop at "let me play among us stars", good job

man i hope this channel is one of those that blows up randomly. your content is pretty good

To me it sounded like: IT'S MY LIIIIFEEEEE - DON'T YOU FORGEEEEETTTT

4 minutes into this video and I think I'm in love with this channel already Edit: 7:40 "looking at the melody, we can see it's literally the same thing copy-and-pasted but downwards; this is called a sequence..." I CAN'T- That's the most hilarious way of explaining sequences I've ever heard 10:06 I did not imagine I'd hear all of a sudden my beloved FMA OP but here we are

I freaking love music theory. 20:55 at first this sort of reminded me of the main theme of Animal Crossing Wild World, mostly the I - IV - ♭VII7 - ♭III progression

Omg you won't even believe the sheer excitement that hit me when I saw this pop up. New Cadence video, _and_ it's a twenty minute long deep dive on the chord progression that I just so happen to be obsessed with at the moment? Can't wait till I get off work to watch this!

did i just get weezered by a music theory video

a classical music example of a major circle progression is the in first movement of grieg’s goldberg suite

The way you presented the theory using images and musical examples was just amazing, a learned so much with this. Please keep up with this kind of video ❤

My fav progression, probably. I like how it shows up in all genres. For a recent example, it’s used in a cool way in the ED of the anime Metallic Rouge. Variation 3 shows up in a lot of jazz (you can also hear it in the Kemono Friends OP)

Y'all really jazzed up the sad Naruto song for the outro lmfao💀 Really cool video! The first time you played the progression at 4:58 my brain IMMEDIATELY went to I Will Survive and now you got me thinking about every song I've ever heard with this progression🥴

damn i never noticed that phrasing in virtual insanity! thats so cool

Fantastic video! Even though I have very little knowledge of music theory, I was able to follow along. Plus, your obvious interest and love for the subject is infectious.

love this video! super interesting! just a slight nitpick tho (ik) but the nyan cat song is actually called "nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!" and it's by daniwell ~however the original song uses hatsune miku for vocals and the actual nyan cat song is a cover by momomomoP using momone momo for the vocals but that's more hyperspecific in terms of credits~

Absolutely in love with these videos, my brain grows 5 times larger

Over time I've learned the name "circle of fifths progression" isn't really "correct" nor very helpful as the COF wasn't invented for making chord progressions (published by Johann Heinichen in 1728). There's actually a different real name and concept that transforms harmonic degrees into a circular scale that explains how these chord progressions work and it's explained in two different books. One book is called "How Music Really Works" by Wayne Chase, from 2008. It's in chapters 5.5.7 and 6 but I recommend reading through the earlier chapters about how intervals within chords interact with each other to make complete sense, based on psychoacoustics and how our brain responds to frequency ratios of intervals. The first half of the book is free on his website. That circular harmonic scale concept that he talks about was first introduced way back in Victor Zuckerkandl’s 1959 book "The Sense of Music," (section 186 titled "the scale of harmonic degrees"), which Wayne said was a source in his research. So that shows the solidness of the concept if it can be explained and put to use a half a century later by different people, and has much more usefulness in seeing how chords flow and move with each other than the COF. It can also explain why chord progressions other than Fly Me To The Moon or Hey Joe work, such as progressions similar to All Along The Watchtower or Here There & Everywhere, with different visualizations of progression types and the types of sensations they create.

why does this creator only have 19k subs.....keep up the good work!

It's hard to overstate just how masterful virtual insanity is as a whole

Targets from Melee is such a good song

WHERE WAS THIS VIDEO WHEN I WAS TAKING AP MUSIC THEORY THIS IS AWESOME

6:42 wait a minute

5:15 "a bit minor there" is fitting for the anime canon.

23:04 My first detailed composition uses this chord progression (albeit a simpler version, just the default versions of the chords)! This video was a major reason to do so, its such a beautiful progression and this helped me understand it!

she never misses

i appreciate you separating western musical concepts form being the "norm". it is true the western ear likes to hear chords resolving down the 5th, here in stepanavan armenia we like hearing chords resolving on the microtonal 4th with vomit noise ran through gain and a wah pedal, completely different from the euro-centric vision of music.

dude these videos are so bangin

badass educational content

Very informative, I’ll definitely have to try out some of these variations ❤👀

Babe wake up new cadence hira Nintendo video just dropped

Such a good video, thank you for making this!

Wow, I want to thank you for this video. I’m a intermediate guitar player and my knowledge of music theory amounts to ‘chord progression = arbitrary sequence of diatonic chords and sometimes you can borrow chords.’ This video contains so much useful information. I feel like I can write my own music with more purpose than before. Thank you!

Great work as always! I love this progression. My favourite variation is the one that starts on the IV, but it is indeed very hard to find any examples that don't substitute the V for the viio7. One particular example I really llike is the B section Star Festival from Super Mario Galaxy. First of all, it uses the tritone sub of the V/ii which is always juicy. But what I love about it is the way it facilitates an extremely stealthy key change. The A section (or intro? I'm gonna call it the A section) is in E major, and the B section, which uses the circle progression. is in B major. But because it's using the IV variation of the circle progression, it starts on E, which was the tonic of the previous section. On top of this, the A section had already introduced A# as a chromatic note, smoothing the transition even further. By the time you finally reach the resolution to B six bars into the B section the modulation has slipped by unnoticed. Or at least, it did for me until I learned to play it and suddenly realized that the key signature on the page no longer matched what I was hearing.

I love your channel soo much please keep going your videos are both so informative and genuinely sotheme of the funnest music theory videos out there! ❤ I really wish you had a patreon to support you?

Did I just get fucking weezered by a music theory video?

Excuse me what's all this informative and well presented music mumbo jumbo? I'm trying to watch djivvi's technique with the 9 Iron! Please consider this for me and the greater Nintendo Switch Sports golfer community.

The way I was singing fly me to the moon already

Gotta love this video. You learn, you have fun, you get some wii nostalgia. Nice.

thank lord I found your channel this is perfect!!!

You are my new favorite channel

INCREDIBLE THANK YOU! made stuff i knew make more sense

I haven't finished this video yet so maybe you say it later but a good note is that in Fly Me to the Moon (and others) the reason the melody "follows the pattern of the bass" isn't necessarily because it wants to follow the bass, rather because the chord tones land on beat 1. If we think of Fly me to the moon in C Major (or A minor), it's apparent. Chord 1 is A minor and the melody is C (the third of the chord), chord 2 is D minor and the melody note is F (the third of the chord), chord 3 is G7 and the melody note is B, I'm sure you see the pattern. Etc etc. same for other standards like Autumn Leave and All the things you are. When improvising it's fun to follow these movements as you land on the chord tones on the first beat of the bar every time.

this video slaps

Great video! I especially love getting to know pieces of music that use these concepts I had previously just seen on a textbook or in a classical setting. I just wanted to share (at 13:25) that due to classical voice leading conventions (for example, making the melody move chromatically as in b2-1-7, instead of leaping a diminished third from b2-7 directly), is it fairly common for the Neapolitan chord to differ the dominant chord and instead use that inverted tonic minor chord. However, again due to classical conventions, this second inversion minor tonic chord bears the same function as the dominant chord, albeit just having the suspension of two of the voices, just as you pointed out, (in this example in f minor, f and ab) that fall down to the most powerful notes of the dominant (e and g). I hope this is interesting!

WOOOOO RHYTHM HEAVEN MENTIONED ‼‼🐒🥋🎊🥳🍾🎊🪓🗿

Firstly, I really hope that your content/ channel blows up randomy over night Secondly, many thanks for your overview of the circe progression, i couldn‘t find anything useful on the internet :(

Nice video 👍

Every Dragon Quest soundtrack is full of this progression in so many unique ways

AAAAAAAH new cadence hira video dropped!!!

20:56 PvZ's closing theme "There's a Zombie on your Lawn" has a pretty similar progression imo, for the first 5-6 chords at least

Cool channel, i have music i can invent in my head but no way to write it down, i feel like mr. Krabs saying beep boop bop I learn from these channels so hopefully one day i can make sense of the noise in my head

i was gonna take a music theory class at my college but this is free content

Do Cry For Me by TWICE and Homage by Mile High Club count? They just give me that exact vibe. Also great video, funny, refreshing and really informative. May the algorithm help your channel blow up.

This is an excellent video that did actually teach me a few things, but I still can't get over the fact (in a funny haha way) that all the text is in the Musescore jazz font. Still a good video though. Earned my subscribe.

22:26 have you heard piranha plant lullaby? I’m not entirely sure but when i play the song on piano i do exactly what the tiktok does in the left hand and play melody with my right.

This chord progression SLAPS. 2:15

23:45 YES! i knew i had heard that progression before

Youe videos are great

I’m gonna need a video in the anime canon to understand this

love the video! i...i also love autumn leaves tho😓

babe wake up, new cadence hira vid just dropped

The last example ABSOLUTELY count I don't care

You mention a lot that this only applies to Western styles of music. Would you ever cover the theory behind other styles of music?

New videos, nice one. 👍

One of my favorite circle progressions is in Dirty Work by Steely Dan. The verse goes vi-ii-V7-I-IV-bVII-I. Getting around the Tritone by borrowing the bVII makes it feel very funky and cool

I had an idea on the Vivaldi's seasons progression and to my ears, if you just keep going after that C it's a sweet transition into the version starting on I, and even better it still sounds good if you loop it again starting on the iv as long as you extend the final Fm across 2 measures The progression completely falls apart after that but it goes for longer than I expected

I was just about to comment about the Neapolitan chord, I'm shocked that you beat me to it. in fact in my opinion Bb is the chord that founded the city of Naples

This is epic

7:02 *insert dicaprio point and whistle*

Love the NewJeans and TWICE shoutouts.

commenting for the algorithm

As soon as you played the example of the circle I heard Animal Crossing 😁

This video is insane... virtual! That is to say, great job!

Cadence Hira is my favorite way to learn music theory

21:52 I would LOVE to see an April fools video where you analyze a SiIva video

0:55 Reminds me of that one purple cube

LETSGOOOO

6:42 did you seriously put an among us reference in here cause it sounds more like they're saying "among the stars"? Isn't that what they've always been saying?

Wow

Variation 3: Does "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" by Frankie Vallie count as an unaltered version of the pattern? The tiktok example immediately sent me to that song.(As well as being cited in one of the original Japanese videos on Royal Road)

So... I made another response to this on my channel... jk not really. This is really well done and provides a MUCH better explanation of the "Circle of 5ths" than I've seen elsewhere

Cool video. Really nice info... F you, pray to autumn leaves

I love your videos! But please lower the volume of the examples, I always get jumpscared lol

21:21 IM AN ESPERANTIST, THE LANGUAGE WITH THE LARGEST CONGLANG COMMUNITY

6:43 mågus

Man I can only ever think of "I Will Survive" when i hear this progression. Also I feel mother 3's love theme has something similar to all this, I think.

Question: To denote a minor chord, you add a dash, but I was taught to use lowercase numerals. Is one way more standard or "more correct" than the other? I II- III- IV V VI- VII° v.s. I ii iii IV V vi vii° (P.S. this looks pretty silly in a sans serif font lol)

The last one reminds me of piranha plants lullaby from Super Mario 64!

Among us in fly me to the moon!

Honestly im surprised you didnt mention smells like teen spirit during the circle of 5ths. From Fm to Bb to Eb to Ab.

Lit every Vivaldi single piece

"Am I right fellas? Bazinga" is the only acceptable manner in which to attempt to change nomenclature

Can we PLEASE get a full cover of my ordinary life? Please?

6:42 among us stars (read the sheet music)

"let me play AMONG US stars" Genius

What's the tiktok song at the beginning?

this is the most chill music theory video