The circle of fifths text table shows the number of flats or sharps in each of the
diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...
musical scales
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.
Often, especially in the ...
and keys. Both
C major
C major (or the key of C) is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and ...
and
A minor
A minor is a minor scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative major is C major and its parallel major is A major.
The A natural minor scale is:
:
Changes ...
keys have no flats or sharps.
In the table, minor keys are written with lowercase letters, for brevity. However, in common
guitar tabs notation, a minor key is designated with a lowercase "m". For example, A-minor is "Am" and D-sharp minor is "Dm").
![Circle of fifths unrolled, pythagorean comma](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Circle_of_fifths_unrolled%2C_pythagorean_comma.svg)
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The small interval between equivalent notes, such as F-sharp and G-flat, is the
Pythagorean comma
In musical tuning, the Pythagorean comma (or ditonic comma), named after the ancient mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, is the small interval (or comma) existing in Pythagorean tuning between two enharmonically equivalent notes such as C ...
. Minor scales start with , major scales start with .
See also
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Circle of fifths
In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval ...
*
Key signature
In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef at ...
*
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...
Notes
Harmony