The Circle of Fifths
The basis for most of today's modern music (especially gospel, blues and rock music) is based on a concept called the circle of fifths. If you look back at the lesson where I teach scale construction, you will see that I have numbers designated under each degree of the scale ((R)-W-W-H-W-W-W-H) (1)-2-3-4-5-6-7-8… no matter what key you start in, those are the degrees of a major scale. I have found that most songs are structured primarily around the first, fourth and fifth degrees of whatever scale or key you are playing in. Anyone who has ever seen a blues band where some stranger or guest musician will walk on with a guitar or saxophone, who has never played with that particular band before sees that all he has to know is what key the band is in. The leader of the group will say something like "blues progression in C" and bam… they are all off to the races, because the new guy knows that his main chords will be in C (the first degree) F (the fourth degree) and G (the fifth degree)… vi, If you look at the illustration above, it is as simple as picking any note or chord in the circle as your root note or chord, and knowing that the note or chord in front of it in the circle is the fourth degree, and the note or chord behind it is the fifth degree.
Let's give it a spin: if you pick the note or chord A on the circle, you know D is the fourth degree, and E is the fifth. if you pick Bb, Eb is the fourth and F is the fifth.
Now, understand this: once you grasp that, then know that you do not have to make chord progressions in any particular order as long as you remember what your root, fourth and fifth degrees are. If you are playing a C-F-G progression, those chords can be played anywhere on the piano or guitar… high C, Middle C, Low C… C is the root no matter where you strike it… and that goes for any other note in that progression. You can play the C at middle C, drop down to the left and hit F… it is still the fourth degree in the C scale even though you went down to get it instead of up. The math never changes even if the placement of the notes do. This allows you to use the sixth degree of the scale as the glue to get from one degree to the other. In a lot of gospel or blues song, the sixth degree is the tie in for the circle of fifths as demonstrated in the hook from "How Great Is Our God":
(C) (Am)
How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God...
(F) (G) (C)
And my heart will sing how great is our God...
This song is great without the A minor walk-down to F…But adding that Am (A minor) on the way to F...it just makes the song. Check out "Every Praise":
(D) (Bm)
Every praise is to our God, Every word of worship with one accord,
(G) (A) (D)
Every Praise… every praise… is to our God...
Two different songs, two different sounds, two different artists, using the exact same circle of fifths concept with the exact same 6th degree minor tie in… only one is played in the key of C, and the other is played in the key of D. You would be stunned to know how many songs duplicate this exact same circle of fifths formula.
All you have to do is remember what your root note or chord is, and what the notes or chords to the right or left of it in the circle is, knowing that your sixth degree is often (but not always) your tie in. The circle of fifths works because it is how our ear works. It has been how modern music has been absorbed by our brains for years. When you lead praise and worship, and you pick songs that are blatant circle of fifth praise and worship anthems, people who don't understand music are able to instinctively follow along, and musicians who understand the concept can join right in.
