The Circle of Fifths Part 6 - where does it go? [d] finding all major & minor chords in any key
We have now established several crucial aspects to our Circle of Fifths.
The notes reading clockwise are the 5ths that give rise to its name.
Those notes, taken as a seven-note consecutive group will give the notes of any major scale – with the root of the major scale being the second note clockwise.
From there it is an easy leap to being able to view those notes as scale degrees. And the order, as we saw earlier, of scale degrees clockwise is 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7.
We then can make another small and obvious leap that those scale degrees can represent the root notes of the diatonic chords of the major scale being viewed. The first three in order clockwise can be taken as the root notes of the IV, I and V chords – diatonic major chords that form the basis of pretty much all rock ‘n’ roll and blues). The subsequent three in order are the root notes of the ii, vi and iii minor chords. The diminished comes last.
We then created an inner wheel in two ways, both with the same net result. The inner wheel was labelled with (minor) chord symbols rather than just alphabetical note names as its purpose is to group minor chords on the inner wheel with major chords on the outer wheel.
The means by which we did this illustrates the main functionality of having the inner wheel also.
And it is that we shall look at next.