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6.7.7
| Circle of Fifths Progression: Chords and Keys |
If you treat the key names in the circle of fifths as chord names and proceed around the circle of fifths counterclockwise, you get descending fifth progressions called circle of fifths progressions.
For generations, students, songwriters, and even music teachers, unaware of the circular harmonic scale and how it works, have used the circle of fifths as a crude harmony-organizing tool.
Big mistake.
The circle of fifths has several major disadvantages as a scale of chords:
- No key-specific organizing framework. As you progress around the circle of fifths, you exit the key after the second chord! And you don’t return unless you go all the way round the circle. (More on this in a moment.)