Circle of Fifths

The circle of fifths is a common aid musicians (and music teachers) use to remember key signatures and musical relationships of notes. It typically appears as a circle and consists of all 12 pitches which are arranged in such a way that any pair of adjacent pitches represents a perfect fifth (see interval), in the clockwise direction. The circle of fifths provides an easy way to find out the key of a song, by displaying how many sharps or flats are in each key, major or minor. For instance, C has no sharps or flats, and E has four sharps.