[Dixielandjazz] Circle of 5ths

[Dave Gravatt]

You are quite right, John. It always amazes me how one question to this list can produce so many different opinions and ideas of what's right. Fortunately, many of them have at least some value.

You're also right in discerning which opinions to ignore regarding the circle of fifths. 

The circle of fifths: C (up a fifth to) G (up a fifth to) D (up a fifth to) A, etc.

The circle of fifths "in reverse" is a circle of fourths which, to me, is a much better teaching/learning tool as it so relates to music and actual tunes:

A (up a fourth to) D (up a fourth to) G (up a fourth to) C (up a fourth to) F, etc. 

Hope this helps.

Dave

=============
Dave Gravatt
"It's a treat to beat your feet."
The New Creole Jazz Band
Springfield, Missouri
417-877-8811 (home)
417-894-8557 (cell)
http://www.CreoleJazz.com

>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: John Farrell <stridepiano at tesco.net>
>  Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Circle of 5ths
>  Sent: Nov 08 '05 13:21
>  
>  Some of the responses to this thread have been interesting. One, Steve
>  Barbone's, suggested that if by now I did not know what a circle of 5ths was
>  then I must be suffering from arrested musical development - in fact my
>  original question to the list was not what it was, but why it was it so
>  called when the intervals employed were 4ths.
>  
>  Another suggestion was that "5ths" indicated the number of chromatically
>  ascending notes required to progress to the subdominant key (five).  A novel
>  notion but I don't buy it.
>  
>  Several listmates have said that the circle of 5ths is also known as a
>  circle of fourths, the latter according with my contention. Others pointed
>  out that the 5th refers to the relationship of the dominant note, while this
>  has an authoritative ring it seems to me to be an unnecessarily clumsy
>  system of identifying a simple harmonic progression.
>  
>  Had the notorious Joe McCarthy been musically inclined he might have branded
>  some of his victims The Circle Of Fifths.
>  
>  John Farrell
>  http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm
>  
>  
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  Dixielandjazz mailing list
>  Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>  http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>