the circle of 5ths for the piano.

Question

Hi everyone. I’m a self-taught amateur pianist.

I’m trying to make sense of scales— beyond just memorizing them— and understand the patterns. I was under the impression that the circle of fifths would help understand scales and why they are what they are.

Eg:

*Why is a C scale absent of sharps, when the G scale isn’t?*

I’ve been trying to learn to read music and understand theory through a combination of watching YouTube videos and studying sheet music, but the ads on Youtube are totally intrusive, and I keep seeing explanations that seem to contradict each other because of my limited understanding of the background information. There is so much information out there and most of it seems to hinge on context that I don’t understand.
To learn and apply information, I generally need to watch people do something or look at thorough diagrams/charts; as well, I really benefit from actual conversations with other people in which they’re talking to me and I am able to ask them questions directly. I want to start taking lessons as soon as I can afford it so I can have one on one conversations with a trained teacher.

Edited for clarity!

Thanks so much♡

*Edited again: THANK YOU, really, I wish I could give all of you a million reddit awards. Seriously, so many of you have given me totally thorough answers that have still been easy to understand. I love it.*

In: 12

Answer 1

Honestly this is too big a subject for an ELI5 explanation. You might try searching on the web for “basic music theory” and see if there are results that you can read and follow. Stick to one explanation and grasp what they’re saying. Going to multiple sites and watching multiple videos aren’t really going to help.

Music theory, as the name suggests, is a way of organizing and structuring music – videos might not be the best format – reading a nice website explanation slowly is probably better to get the general idea. Comparing and contrasting explanations at the beginner level is IMHO not useful at all – it will just confuse you. Pick one that seems easy to understand and build up your knowledge from there.

The circle of 5ths won’t be too useful until you have some idea of notes, the major scale (at least), basic chord triads (and possibly key signatures). The circle of 5ths is a good way to see and understand chord progressions in songs (and is very useful if you’re writing music). But without the basics outlined above, explaining the use of the circle of 5ths will be difficult.