The Ukulele is one of the best stringed instruments a beginner can try their hand at. It's cheap, portable, and easy to learn.
But it’s still a fully functional musical instrument. This means that the circle of fifths is every bit as powerful when applied to the ukulele as any other instrument.
Unfortunately, many learners are deterred from learning the circle of fifths because it seems complex and intimidating, but don’t worry! It’s way easier than it sounds.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started using the circle of fifths on your ukulele journey.
You'll learn to:
✔️ How to read the circle of fifths and use it to find the notes in any major/minor scale.
✔️ Discover which key and which chords are used on any of your favorite songs.
✔️ Effortlessly transpose songs into different keys.
✔️ Start creating your own chord progressions.
How the Circle of Fifths Works
The first step in utilizing the circle of fifths is to understand how it's laid out.
You'll notice on the outer circle there are 12 notes, these represent the 12 major scales we use in music.
Starting at the top you have C major, which has no sharps of flats. Each step you take around the circle of fifths climbs up by a perfect fifth and adds an extra sharp.
If you go counterclockwise by 1 step you'll move by a perfect fourth and introduce 1 more flat note.
For a more in-depth overview of how this works check out our Beginner's Guide to the Circle of Fifths here.
Why does this matter?
You're now able to quickly check the circle of fifths to understand how many sharps or flats are in a given key.
So let's say you wanted to play in E major, that's 4 steps clockwise on the circle of fifths, meaning that E major has 4 sharp notes.
What about the inner circle?
This shows you the relative minor scale of the corresponding scale on the outer circle. Relative minor scales share the exact same notes as their major counterparts, just different root notes.
For example, C major contains identical notes to A minor, and D major has the same notes as B minor.
What Can I Use the Circle of Fifths for?
As a learner, you may want to understand which chords are being used in your favorite songs, but figuring them out by ear can be challenging.
By using the Circle of Fifths Decoder by Noisy Clan, you can quickly figure out which key and which chords are used in a song.
If you know a few chords already this process is quite easy.
Check out our FREE Ukulele Cheat Sheet download for a selection of chords in the keys of C, G, and E.
Try your best to identify a couple of chords from the song. If you really can't hear anything another great option is to just find the lowest note of each chord and call that your progression.
Once you have the notes of a couple of chords in a song, rotate the wheel until those chords or notes appear in the windows.
Try to line up the first chord of the progression with the key and once all the chords are accounted for in the windows.
Congratulations! You've found not only the key of the song but also the scale it uses.
Here’s an example of this method put to use:
Let's take a simple ukulele song like "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz.
You can hear the chords C major, A minor and F. Rotate the wheel until C major is shown at the top and check the other chords displayed in the windows are used in the song.
Sure enough, G, Am, and F are there which confirms the song is in C major.
Transposing Songs on Ukulele
If a song was originally written for the guitar or piano, it’s not always in a key that’s particularly comfortable to play on the ukulele or sing along to.
A simple solution to this is to transpose it into a key that’s nicer to play in or one that compliments your vocal range. Fortunately, you can do that pretty easily using the Circle of Fifths Decoder.
Once you've identified the key and chords present within a song, you have to take note of their corresponding scale degrees. The number is displayed underneath each chord window on your decoder.
Taking our previous example of C, G, Am, and F, on the decoder these will correspond with the numbers 1, 5, 6, and 4. In music theory, this can also be written as I - V - vi - IV.
Let's say you now wanted to play this song in the key of G major instead of C major. All you need to do is rotate the wheel until it shows G at the top and that's it, you're now in G major.
By looking at the new chords that have populated the numbers windows and following our scale degrees of 1, 5, 6, and 4 we now have the new chords G, D, E,m, and C.
You can use this method to transpose any song to any key!
Remember to check out the Circle of Fifths Decoder for Ukulele which is specifically tailored for ukulele players.
Creating Chord Progressions
Maybe you don’t always want to be playing other people's music and instead want to come up with some cool chord progressions for your own songs.
You can use the circle of fifths to help you find creative chord progressions by exploring the relationships between chords in different keys.
Start by choosing a key, and then experiment with the chords that naturally occur within it. The Circle of Fifths visually shows you how each chord connects, making it easy to see which chords tend to sound good together.
For example, if you start with C major, the Circle of Fifths shows you the closely related chords (like F major and G major) that are commonly used in progressions.
You can try a simple progression like C - F - G - C, or mix it up by using minor chords like Am or Em for variety.
As you get more familiar with the circle of fifths, you can experiment with less common chord choices, or move between different keys for more unique sounds.
The circle helps you stay in tune with harmony while leaving plenty of room for creativity!
Ukulele Made Easy
So whether you're learning chords, scales, covering music, or making your own music, the circle of fifths can be an invaluable tool to unlock your musical potential.
The Noisy Clan’s Circle of Fifths Decoder helps you understand the information that much easier.
As you can see, the circle of fifths isn't something to shy away from, but can be an effective way to get you playing, creating, and most importantly, having fun with music!
