How to use the Circle of Fourths to Learn Key Centers on Guitar (part 2)

In this week’s video, Unraveling the Mystery of the Circle of Fourths.

Hey everyone! Welcome to part two where we’ll be taking a deep dive into the Circle of Fourths.

Just like the Circle of Fifths, the Circle of Fourths cycles through key signatures, but with a slight twist: Instead of adding sharps, we’ll be adding flats. This will give us the ‘flat keys’.

Let’s start with the key of C, which has no sharps or flats, and is spelled like this – C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. To find the next key, you can look to the left on the wheel, or count up to the fourth note of the scale you’re on. In the case of C, the fourth note is F, so the next key on the Circle of Fourths is the key of F.

As you move up one fourth to the next key, you always add one flat to the key signature. The shortcut to remember which flat you’ll be adding is that it will be on the fourth note of that scale. For example, in the key of F, the fourth note is B, so we add a flat sign to it, giving us B flat. This means that the F scale is spelled like this: F, G, A, B flat, C, D, E, and F.

Just like the Circle of Fifths, we’ll keep all the flat signs from the keys that came before as we move through the Circle of Fourths, accumulating flats. For example, once we get to the key of B flat, we add a flat sign to the fourth note of the scale, which is E flat. Now, in the key of B flat, there are two flats – B flat and E flat.

This is the basic concept of how the Circle of Fourths works, and I’m sure you can take it from here! To practice it on the guitar, you use the same approach: use the Circle of Fourths to determine which notes are in which scales, then look for that set of notes in the first position of the guitar, on frets one through four.

Happy learning!