Guitar Lesson 08: the circle of fifths, with Michael Angelo Batio
Taught by Fret, your Change Your Strings Guitar teacher ·
The circle of fifths arranges all twelve keys in a wheel. Move clockwise and each step jumps up a perfect fifth: C, G, D, A, E, B, and on around. Neighbors share almost every note, so chords that sit side by side sound good together. It is the map behind most chord progressions.
What you need
Watch Michael Angelo Batio walk the circle in the video above, then read the breakdown.
Every lesson so far has been in your hands. This one is in your head. The circle of fifths is a diagram, and in his beginner series Batio treats it as a map of the fretboard that shows you which notes and keys belong together. It looks like a clock face with a letter at every hour.
Here is the one rule that builds it. Start at the top on C, then move clockwise. Each step up is a perfect fifth: C to G, G to D, D to A, A to E, E to B, and on around the wheel until it lands back on C. That is the whole structure. Twelve keys, each a fifth apart, in a loop.
Why should a beginner care? Because neighbors on the circle share almost all of their notes, so chords that sit next to each other sound good together. Take any three in a row. The one in the middle is home, the one to its left is its warm, resolving partner, and the one to its right pulls back toward home. Those three chords are the backbone of thousands of songs.
Land on G, and its two neighbors are C and D. There they are, the three chords behind more songs than you could learn in a lifetime.
There is a bonus hiding here. Each major key shares its notes with a minor one, its relative minor, sitting just inside the wheel. The Em you learned back in Lesson 04 is the relative minor of G. Same notes, different home base. That is why Em drops so easily into a G, C, and D song.
Batio teaches this series on his Sawtooth guitars. If you want one from that lineup, the Sawtooth ES Hybrid Michael Angelo Batio signature is a model from his endorsed range.
Practice this
Give this five minutes, no guitar needed for the first half. On paper, write the circle clockwise from memory: C, G, D, A, E, B. Say each letter as you write it. Then pick up the guitar and strum the three neighbors from the diagrams, C, then G, then D, slow and clean, one after another. You are not learning a song yet. You are hearing the circle prove that neighbors belong together.
Where you are
Lesson 07: alternate picking gave your picking hand its engine, and now you have the map that tells your fretting hand where to point it. Keep everything in standard tuning (E A D G B E), and if you want to see how far this fretboard knowledge can go, study Michael Angelo Batio, who built a career on knowing exactly where every note lives. Next, Lesson 09: your first song (three chords), where G, C, and D finally become music.