The Circle of Fifths Explained (For Guitar)

August 15, 2025

About the Author: Cameron Hayes

Cameron Hayes is a guitar educator at the London Guitar Institute, teaching a wide range of styles such as rock, metal, blues, jazz, folk, RnB, acoustic, and many more! He teaches a large volume of students on a weekly basis and always looks to provide outstanding value in each and every lesson!

What is the circle of fifths?

The circle of fifths is a tool, often displayed as a circular diagram, which shows us the 12 keys found within the chromatic scale, as well as their corresponding key signatures.

This tool is a staple in not just music theory, but also within all melodic instruments to understand what sharps (♯)/flats (♭) are found within certain keys, which in turn will dictate what notes will be available to you when playing a particular piece.

Let’s Take a Look!

Use the diagram above as a reference as we talk through the different keys – this topic of the circle of fifths makes a lot more sense when you have this visual to go off of!

The first key that we start at is the key of C major.

Why do we love C so much? Because there are no sharps or flats in the key of C!

This means that if you were to play a C major scale on the piano, you would be playing all white keys from C to C without needing to play any of the black keys (as these are the sharp/flat notes).

This will look a little different on the guitar, as the notes are not really laid out this way.

Instead we can think about what notes we are playing. Start on a C (perhaps 3rd fret A string) then play the following sequence: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C.

From there we move clockwise to our next key, G major, which contains one sharp, an F♯. This means that if we were to play G to G, every note is natural except for F, which becomes F♯.

G – A – B – C – D – E – F♯ – G

As we continue moving around clockwise, we add on an additional ♯ (sharp) for each new key that we arrive at, meaning D major contains two sharps (F♯, C♯), A major contains three sharps (F♯, C♯, G♯), E major contains four sharps (F♯, C♯, G♯), A major – five sharps (F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯), and so on:

C Major – no sharps

G Major – F♯

D Major – F♯, C♯

A Major – F♯, C♯, G♯

E Major – F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯

B Major – F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯

F♯ Major – F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, E♯

C♯ Major – F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, E♯, B♯

Notice how we always follow the same sequence of sharps, just adding on an additional one each time?

If you get stuck remembering what order the sharps need to go in from key to key, the trick I always used was the rhyme “Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle”.

TIP – to move up the interval of a fifth on the guitar, use your powerchord shape!

Powerchord shapes are sometimes also called “fifth” chords, such as G5, D5 etc., because the interval between the two notes is a perfect 5th!

For example, if you were to play a C powerchord (C5), the bottom note would be C, and the top note would be G. A G powerchord would give G and D, a D powerchord D and A, and so on!

What About the Flat Keys

So if we move clockwise around the diagram to find our sharp keys, how do we find the flat keys? You guessed it – we move anticlockwise!

Start again at C which is our neutral point as it contains no sharps or flats, and this time move anticlockwise to the key on the left, which is F major.

F major contains one flat (♭), which is a B♭.

The order of flats goes in reverse to the sharps – we start at B and work our way around to F.

To remember this we can use basically the same rhyme; Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles’ Father.

Let’s wiz through the flat keys found when travelling anticlockwise around the circle of fifths:

C Major – no flats

F Major – B♭

B♭ Major – B♭, E♭

E♭ Major – B♭, E♭, A♭

A♭ Major – B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭

D♭ Major – B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭

G♭ Major – B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭

NOTE – have you noticed that there are two versions of the keys signature listed for C♯/D♭ and F♯/ G♭? We can write both of these keys in either its sharp key or flat key. In principle these are the same notes, but will change how we think about them. This may depend on the context or what instrument you are playing.

Relative Minor Keys

You may have noticed in the inside of the circle of fifth diagram that there are other keys noted down, written with a lower case m next to them (Am, Em, Bm, etc).

These are our relative minor keys. Every major key will have a relative minor key, which in short means that they contain the same notes and the same key signature.

For example, the key of D major contains two sharps (F♯, C♯), and so does the key of B minor.

So what’s the difference?

If a piece centres around the minor chords of the key, this will give it a more minor tonality which has a darker, sadder sound. Even though they both contain the same notes, they can convey a very different mood depending on what notes and chords are targeted.

Putting in to Practise

So all of that information is very fascinating and useful if you’re planning on sitting an upcoming music theory exam, but how do we actually put this into practise?

For one, it’s always useful to know what notes are available to you in a key, in particular if you are improvising.

Let’s say you are jamming away in the key of F major/D minor and you want to take a solo.

You could be playing away on all of the natural notes on the guitar neck, but then something terrible happens – you play a B natural note!

As we now know thanks to the circle of fifths, the B notes should be changed to a B♭ in the key of F major/D minor, meaning if we always think about this when soloing we will know what notes to avoid!

If you are a songwriter, you may be sitting down with a guitar or piano and trying to figure out a catchy melody to go with your chord progression.

So that you know what notes will work in the key, use the circle of fifths to pinpoint the sharps and flats of the key to know which notes will need to be altered.