From the course: Learning Music Notation
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The circle of 5ths
- [Instructor] Learning and memorizing the key signatures for all of the major and minor keys is quite a daunting task. It wasn't until someone explained to me the Circle of 5ths that I was able to organize my thoughts and get to the point where I just knew what the key signature was for each key. So this is mostly about theory, but once you master The Circle of 5ths, you'll know how to correctly notate key signatures. So the diagram we're looking at here, is organized using the interval of a perfect 5th, and that would be, for example, C up to G. So if we go from C to D, that's one, D to E, that's two, E to F is a half, two and a half, and F to G would be another whole, that would be three and a half total steps, and that interval is called a perfect 5th. You'll notice as we look at the diagram, as we go around clockwise, we're adding sharps, and as we go to the counter clockwise, we're adding flats. So let me give you a key to understanding this. So as we go clockwise, we're going…
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