This may be a no-brainer, but for some reason it just occurred to me this week that key signature flashcards (I love this set of Student Flashcards from TCW Resources!) would provide a great hands-on opportunity to create and understand the Circle of 5ths!
Mercy has been working hard on memorizing all of her key signatures, so at her lesson this week, we laid out all of the cards in order and then I arranged them in a circular pattern and asked if she could figure out why this arrangement of them was called “The Circle of 5ths.” After thinking about it for a minute, she realized that each subsequent key was a 5th above the previous key. The proverbial lightbulb flashed and she couldn’t stop thanking me for explaining this to her because now it all made so much sense!
We discussed the enharmonic keys and then moved into the flat keys until we arrived back at C Major/a minor. Doing this activity together helped her see in a very tangible way how the Circle of 5ths works and it finally clicked for her why you could count up in 5ths to determine the sharp keys and down in 5ths to figure out the flat keys. It’s so fun to help students grow in their understanding of music theory – hopefully in a way that they will never forget!
Samantha L says
This is really helpful as it is easy for the learner to study piano. How I wished I’ve done this when I was younger so that it would be easier and faster for me to learn.