If you look at a scale, it looks like a ladder where each rung is a note that fits in the key signature. For you history buffs, or if you just want to rock on trivia night, then remember that the word scale comes from the Latin word 'Scala,' which means ladder. If you were to use just those notes, you could make melodies and harmonies that would sound good together. If you want to experiment with the Circle of Fifths, we recommend that you try this excellent interactive Circle of Fifths.Scales are collections of the eight notes that make up a key. (Please review inverted intervals if this is confusing.) Since going down by a perfect fifth is the same as going up by a perfect fourth, the counterclockwise direction is sometimes referred to as a 'circle of fourths'. If you go up a perfect fifth (clockwise in the circle), you get the key that has one more sharp or one less flat if you go down a perfect fifth (counterclockwise), you get the key that has one more flat or one less sharp. The circle of fifths gets its name from the fact that as you go from one section of the circle to the next, you are going up or down by an interval of a perfect fifth. The keys that are most distant from C major, with six sharps or six flats, are on the opposite side of the circle. The next most closely related keys to C major would be G major (or E minor), with one sharp, and F major (or D minor), with only one flat.

This puts them in the same 'slice' of the circle. So the most closely related key to C major, for example, is A minor, since they have the same key signature (no sharps and no flats). What makes two keys 'closely related' is having similar key signatures. Keys are not considered closely related to each other if they are near each other in the chromatic scale (or on a keyboard). In theory, one could continue around the circle adding flats or sharps (so that B major is also C flat major, with seven flats, E major is also F flat major, with 6 flats and a double flat, and so on), but in practice such key signatures are very rare. The major key for each key signature is shown as a capital letter the minor key as a small letter.

A flat major key