Why? Ascending 4th or descending 5th is still applicable in a monophonic context. Btw, whether it's ascending or descending, isn't it in most cases defined by the bass ?
Inverting 4ths and 5ths intervallically is synonymous to me. But its easier refer to it as going up or down to describe these interval inversion relationships to a given note, at least diatonically. If you were to go up from C to E its a major 3rd interval, to go down from C to E is a minor 6th interval. Going up from C to D is a major 2nd interval, to go down from C to D is a minor 7th interval. You should notice that going to the same note up and down, the two intervals always sum to 9, and if its a major interval going up, its a minor interval going down.
I'm so glad you posted this... I showed the previous video to my roommate and throughout the whole video he just kept shouting, "THAT'S NOT A FIFTH!!! THAT'S A FOURTH!! WHAT IS GOING ON???" lol
Great video. I was one of those confused people in the comments (I never said you were wrong I just didn't get it) and when you kindly explained to me in a response I started to get it and it's really helped with how my theory understanding. Edit: I'm a bassist so I'm used to thinking in 4th for the strings, as you said here, and I mostly play monophonic. It's only now that I'm learning piano that I'm trying to think more on chords
The reason 4ths and 5ths are perfect is because the quality of the interval doesn't change when you invert it. If you invert a major 3rd for example, you get a minor sixth and so on will all intervals except for the 4th and 5th. Just one more way to look at things. But once you learn the number system, you will find that you now have a way to give what you are hearing a name. Most of us learned early on how to identify red because our parents had a name they could give it and we could then remember it. Most parents don't know what a 3rd "looks like" (or sounds like) so they couldn't identify it for us. But once you know the number system, you can in time learn to identify that sound just a surely as if it were a color so to speak. A 2nd sounds nothing like a 3rd and so on. There was my life in music before the number system, and then after. My ability to learn music went up immensely after that. Take the time, learn it and then apply it to what you hear and you will be amazed what happens after that. You'll be able to immediately pick out melodies and chord progressions become a snap to learn. It has nothing to do with perfect pitch, tho I suppose that would help if you had it. I call it relative pitch. How each note relates to the tonic, and what that relationship sounds like.
@@slapmyfunkybass hmm, I would say both interpretation are subjective, because the invertion thing works for any interval apart from the tritone and it's not perfect anyway, and though the scale degree sounds better to me, the 2nd is the same in major, minor, lydian mixolydian, and dorian and it's not perfect either, I don't researched this but maybe it relates to the fact that 6 of 7 scale degrees of all the keys/modes have an interval a (perfect) fifth and a (perfect) fourth apart, while that isn't true for 2nds, 3rds, 6ths and 7ths
If you were to go up from C to E its a major 3rd interval, to go down from C to E is a minor 6th interval. Going up from C to D is a major 2nd interval, to go down from C to D is a minor 7th interval. You should notice that going to the same note up and down, the two intervals always sum to 9, and if its a major interval going up, its a minor interval going down and vice versa.
I have always been taught to look at it as if they were two circles, the circle of 5ths and the circle of 4ths, as depending on which direction you go, you have a certain feel towards them (circle of 5ths is the resolving circle, but circle of 4ths is the jazzy circle)
@@JakubJerzyK I know that they are ultimately the same circle, but the feeling is different depending on the direction you go, there is a different feel, which is why I like to say it's 2 different circles, cause their feel is different.
Or if we're speaking in more technical terms, authentic progressions (circle of 5ths) and plagal progressions (circle of 4ths). A plagal sound was commonly used in the rennaisance period, so I think it would do it disservice to just call it jazzy
This is excellent. Also liked the one that led to this. Wonderful application of logic and patterns. My default is ‘one direction is 5ths and the other is 4ths’ so appreciate your exploration of additional ways to think about and explain it to others. Really liked the discussion of intervals vs chord function. Great video topics.
Great topic-I have been waiting for this! Thank you for your excellent explanation and clearing up so much confusion about the Intervals of the Circle of Fifths! It is an essential and amazing tool for all musicians. 👌
I hadn't seen the previous video or taken part in the argument at all. I was aware of the different ways to perceive chord changes since I took theory. But I still watched the whole thing because the clear explanation was nice.
Thanks for clearing that up. I also fell into the trap of confusing chord functions and intervals. From a chord functions point of view it is pretty different which way around you go as you either get a bunch of I-V's or a bunch of I-IV progressions. Which feels different. But as you said the intervals itself are basically interchangeable.
Exactly -- the Circle of Fifths and the Circle of Fourths are the same thing, but clockwise and anticlockwise sound very different, hence Circle of 4ths for anticlockwise
Such an incredibly beautiful put together example of a perfect educator. Taking questions finding out where that could have come from amd realizing when it is a valid critique. You deserve a teachers medal of some sort. I would argue for this video to be raised as an example in teaching standards!
@@DavidBennettPiano i would be very interested in a discussion on your process to parse out the perspectives. And how long the production of the video took!
I’ve been trying to get better at ear training, and telling the difference between ascending and descending fourth intervals and fifth intervals is one of the harder skills for me to learn. (As a data point, I play guitar and I think of the circle of fifths as ascending in both directions.) Thanks for the explanation!
Fourths and Fifths can both be really difficult to identify by ear because they have such a similar consonant sound, particularly when played together rather than one after another.
@@mugiwaranoDave I find the Tenuto app helpful as I can set it to do just a couple intervals and only descending or only ascending and then repeat those again and again until I start to get it right. Then, I"ll add in another interval, and another so that there are more options to guess amongst. After repeating just 4ths and 5ths descending a bunch of times, I hear how the 5th sounds more resolved to me. Going up, the 4th is the "Amen" feeling or "Ta da!" Any other app that lets you limit the intervals and direction ought to do it.
@@peterkelley6344 @David Sharki Yes, I'm also using Rick Beato's ear training course. I try to supplement Rick's course this way when practicing the "all intervals" lesson: when I get an interval wrong, I'll play what I thought it was on the guitar, then find the actual interval on the guitar and try to internalize the difference between what I thought it was, and what it actually was. This seems to help me learn a little better, but I'm still working on it!
I'm still a bit of a novice at music theory, but I understood exactly what you're saying about the relation between fourths and fifths within the first minute of this video. The circle of fifths shows fifths in one direction (clockwise as show here) and fourths in the other (counter-clockwise) direction...which is a good reason to make a video about it. It's a simple thing in many ways, but it's also something that can be easily misunderstood. Over the course of time of watching your videos, I have seen that you give wonderfully simple, clear explanations of very useful musical concepts. Thank you for doing it this way, or more to the point, thank you for being a great music educator who helps people learn to make music.
I stumbled over this paradox playing the accordion. Although I know that the chord-buttons on the left side of the accordion are all equally spaced, going upwards from the center button C (C - G - D - A, etc.) makes me think of perfect 5ths, while going downwards (C - F - Bb - Eb, etc.) suggests perfect 4ths. Greetings from Vienna, Austria. I really love your channel!
One obviously has to distinguish between single notes (intervals) and chords (functions): Single Notes: C - G = perfect 5th UPwards C - F = perfect 5th (!) DOWNwards Chord Functions: C = I F = IV (!) G = V Since the chord buttons of an accordion are placed according to the Circle of fifths Db - Ab - Eb - Bb - F - C - G - D - A - E - B - F#, all adjacent buttons form the same pattern comprised of the three basic chord functions IV - I - V: Db - Ab - Eb, Ab - Eb - Bb, Eb - Bb - F, Bb - F - C, F - C - G, C - G - D, G - D - A, D - A - E, A - E - B, E - B - F# Which by the way makes it exremely difficult to play something in the keys of Db or F#, because Db (I) - Ab (V) and F#/Gb (IV), or B (IV) - F# (I) and Db/C# (V) are on OPPOSITE sides of the left-hand manual! (At least with the basic accordion size of 72 bass and chord buttons with 2 rows of bass buttons and 4 rows of chord buttons: major, minor, major7 and diminished. 12 notes x 6 rows = 72 buttons.)
I’m new to music theory and I had noticed that when a note 1 (let’s say G) is a perfect 5th to note 2 (C) note 2 (C) is a perfect 4th to note 1 (G) and always wondered why that was the case and thought it was cool. Awesome video 🙏🏼
Thanks David! Another brilliant breakdown of theory. I was in the circle of 4ths camp but your presentation here makes perfect (there's that word again) sense. Really dig your channel my friend. Always some great learning when I tune in. Look out Beato!!
Very clear and helpful explanation of 4ths/5ths inversion, and a good reminder that there are usually multiple ways to see/hear the same thing! Edit: meant to also say I'm bookmarking this vid for whenever someone expresses confusion on this. A "perfect" reference!
I believe that's where some people are getting confused. For me something beautiful about music is that it's not about the theory and what you "see", rather than what you hear and this is something the creator is not being so good at pointing out. Cadences sound so much different from each other, the result is a emotional feeling even, and it's really not the same to call different things the same. The idea of calling things is to communicate, and yeah, we're not the best species at that, but this is confusing or simply wrong. Don't bookmark it.
Make that A major and we can really hear it as V to I. But then we move to harmonic minor sounds. Am moving to Dm sounds (to me) as ascending fourth movement. I think of the circle as the third method you mentioned. I remember your original video and wondered about your view of the circle. Thank you for this kind of insight and openness to comments from people. Very cool.
I feel like you kinda missed the point: there's no right answer. From a purely harmonic standpoint, a fourth is the same thing as a fifth, as there are really only 6 possible intervals, from a semitone to a tritone, and anything bigger than that is an inversion of one of those 6. A to Dm isn't even necessarily V to i, it's also I to iv. You'll eventually realize that they're the same thing no matter the context, and the way you decide to call it is just one way to make sense of it, or to express the relationship between the two.
@@DoubleDguitar Oh I didn't mean that as an insult, but "it sounds to me like a perfect fourth" is indeed missing the point of the video which is that it doesn't matter whether it's a fifth or a fourth because they're the same thing. I mean good on you for giving your two cents though.
@@althealligator1467 hearing it is different than analyzing it, I feel. Definitely not taking as insult. Music is too wonderfully ambiguous to make worry over things like this, I know you know. So my take was to move to harmonic minor to emphasize the ear leading that happens there and how resolution from V to I can be so well pronounced. There have been sooo many times where I improvise between say a typical I to IV and start to hear the IV as the I. This ascending and descending analysis is exactly why our ears get pulled. Our eyes can help sort it mentally, while our ears tend to feel it in undefinable ways. I feel, anyway. Glad you said something. I enjoy theory talk.
@@DoubleDguitar Yeah l, understandable. Anyway, I really like using the Parallel major tonic chord instead of its diatonic minor version in this "circle of fifths" progression. A great song that does that if I remember correctly is Je vais t'aimer by Michel Sardou. I also usually like starting the progression on the iv or ii chord - whatever you wanna call it, depending on whether you're looking at it from the relative major or minor key - basically Dm in A minor or C major, and the Picardy third is a good way to lead back to the first chord, like this: Dm G C F Bb E Am A7 I also think having Bb instead of B° just sounds cooler, the Neapolitan chord us a classic trick. I would even argue that B° is essentially the same thing as Dm in that context. Hell, if you've got time for it or wanna hear it, I can explain my whole version of music theory.
My basic theory was learned in a classical context, so it was the circle of 5ths. A few years ago I started learning jazz, and everybody called it the circle/cycle of 4ths. Of course I saw it was the same thing, but in functional harmony, perhaps under the influence of Schenker, the basic root movement was a descending 5th - probably because of the V I cadence, secondary dominants, etc. It's good to put ideologies to one side.
This is why it’s a great thing for guitarist to also learn to play and compose on a piano/keyboard. As primarily a guitarist when I began to take piano seriously it helped in so many ways. Also this is after growing up with a piano in the house and actually the first instrument I ever experienced.
this reminds me that "music is music" and "music theory" is our attempt to describe music in a way so we can talk (and reason) about it. There is a lot more nuance to music than we can hope to capture in language, especially since we may all experience it differently...
Nice one! Also, as a simple way of looking at this, if you 7th a chord, its resolution is a 5th (lower). e.g., G7 goes to C (V to I), C7 to F, and you go around the circle in this V to I manner. Thanks very much for these videos.
I see it as a circle of 5th, but I usually write in the relative minor inside the circle. Like am under C and so on it helps more, and in your first video when you used the minor chords you should have explained the relative relations they have and it would have made perfect sense. But thanks for great videos I enjoy them and learn much! Keep it up!
@@SeventhSwell Where is 12tone when you need him. He would have already made a 30 minute video about this single thread. And he would have somehow managed to fit a random history lesson in as well 😂😂
Unless there is a specific key, and thus an explicit IVth or Vth chord, I would always think of the ascending interval only, regardless of the actual voicing of the chord. C > G is moving a Vth, G > C is moving a IVth (and I generally have to think through Hey Joe to get the right direction)
I feel so bad for you, just reading some of these comments, there a so many people who don’t understand this clear, well made video and comment as if you are wrong.
Without seeing this first, im gonna guess a perfect fourth And after seeing it, yes im a guitarist but the way you explained makes sense. Which is reassuring for me, im starting to get this stuff. thank you david
It's a 6/2/5/1 progression in C Maj on the first 4 bars. You can look at the last four bars in two ways. 1: The last four bars are in C Maj with a E Maj 3rd sub, which is fine because the E Maj comes from the relative minor. 2: The addition of the Bdim to E Maj to Am suggests a Minor ii/V/I in the relative minor. I would go with option 2 for Jazz and option 1 for Rock/pop.
Maybe it's because my formative years of playing music were on bass clarinet, so I was never thinking in terms of chords until much later. I always thought about it as which note/chord you were starting from, not which one you landed on. To use your example, I always looked at A>D as a 4th interval, whereas D>A would be a 5th, whether you were ascending or descending. And then I thought that maybe it was the key signature of the song that determined that, but your addressing that concept in this video has thrown me for a loop, and now I'm not sure what to think.
David, that was a brilliant explanation. I would guess that people who have studied physics would be biased toward thinking in fifths because its frequency is the most prominent in the harmonic series (besides the octaves). The harmonic series of a pitch consists of its integer multiples, for instance, if the fundamental is A= 110 cycles/sec, the first 4 harmonics are 220=A (octave), 330=E (FIFTH), 440=A (octave) and 550=C# (third).
That wouldn't make sense because going up in 4ths or down in 5ths would put you on the same note. I think people just prefer thinking of it as going up a 4th from the 1 to 4 than going down a 5th from 1-4.
You're spot on when it comes me, growing up with guitar and seeing this layout of 4ths in my head. My son would have to learn the (more objective/neutral) piano first instead!
I try to keep the circle of 5th as simple as possible. There were many times I got frustrated with the circle of death and wouldn’t use it. V I Perfect Cadence Notes / chords. The exception of ascending. Then, as chords go, I believe a IV I cadence no matter how it’s inverted even using incorrect parallel 5ths, leaving gaps etc. IV I is called a Plagal Cadence. 4-1 ie Amen.
Someone can call it whatever he likes. The important thing is to know how to build that chord progression and why it sounds so natural and beautiful. David is a great teacher anyway.
Thanks for making this video, I did comment on the original video, and I am a guitar player, and you did comment back, and I just didn’t feel like discussing it, what you said does make sense it being a 4th or 5 th depending on whether your ascending and descending, and as far as being a guitar player and how I view it , has really nothing to do with the tuning of the guitar, the disagreement was from how I was taught the circle of fifths, going clockwise (c to g to etc) are fifth’s and counter clock wise are 4th (f to Bb to Eb), not the tuning of the guitar. The other thing to consider is music theory is not taught for guitar,it’s taught for piano, the formulas for scales,chord construction etc music theory wise work perfectly for piano, ( I don’t know how it works for other instruments, say wind instruments) but say construction of the major scale on piano YOU HAVE TO LEARN Whole Whole ,half, Whole Whole, Whole, Half to play a major scale, on the guitar you just have to learn a “pattern” or “shape” and to play different major scales you don’t CHANGE the pattern or shape you just move it up or down, even with chords, say to make a Major chord to a minor, on Piano you have to learn the formula 1,3,5 is major to make a minor 1,b3,5 on guitar with barre chords all you have to do with a “E” shaped barre chord is lift a finger to make a E an E minor, that’s where some of the confusion and bewilderment comes from when discussing the music theory comes from when you have a bunch a guitar players watching music theory explained/taught on a piano.Thanks for making the video, and being open minded enough to say “ Hey,maybe I could be wrong, or I wasn’t clear enough “ from a fellow musician to another I really appreciate the humility! Too often it’s your not only wrong, your wrong and a idiot for even questioning me!!😂 Cheers!
3:58 I disagree with this particular point. The whole reason why the Circle movement "works" so well to establish a new key is because it SOUNDS like a perfect cadence! Therefore, from this point of view, it is correct to describe the movement as V-I.
That's kind of what I was thinking. Even an Am to Dm move in C major carries a V-I feel, since Am is the v of Dm, just in the same way that Dm is the five of G. That's what makes the ii-V-I work so well. We can't call those movements of a fourth unless we're going to call the cadential V-I a fourth, when we're moving from _five_ to _one_.
Exactly. Moving counter clockwise is a series of V -> I authentic cadences. Moving clockwise is a series of I -> V half cadences. This video is very wrong.
That helps me to understand what I've Always thought about Vivaldi's music. The majority of his music sounded like it had circle of fifths progressions that I wasn't so sure was going in fifths. It turns out I was right, it was circle of fifths, but it was happening in Forths.
I had to look up what backmasking is, and it seems like a fun concept. The only example I can think of is the special version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" used on the Simpsons episode he appeared in haha
The way we did harmony (including counterpoint), we would think of notes in terms of the destination key, the topic being I or i. If D is I, then A is V. When we had secondary dominants, we would label them and include their function. So D major to G in the key of C would be II (V of V) to V. We did everything in capitals for some reason, no lower case roman numerals. We would do all the secondary dominants, including what he called x (V of VII), and the fourths ended with N (IV of IV). That's the neapolitan, and there was a French, German and Italian version of those.
@@DavidBennettPiano Haha yeah maybe not... 😄 Hope the comments are helpful a bit 🙂 As a sidenote, my guitarist mind goes even one step further into what you explain in this video, as when I play I Will Survive, I feel it like going up a fourth, then down a fifth, then up a fourth, then down a fifth.... The instrument really shapes perspective
As a Viola player, I've always thought of it as the circle of fifths, because the strings on a Viola (and on a Violin, and on a Cello) are all in fifths. But a Bass player might think differently because their strings are all in fourths.
I think this explains why I got so confused in music theory class (two different descriptions of the same thing), got hopelessly lost, and dropped the course. I didn’t give it another thought for 45 years when I “re-discovered” the Circle of 5ths and found it fascinating and eye-opening. I wish this video would have been available back then. I vaguely remember hearing “looking forward it’s fourths, looking back it’s fifths”. I chose going to get a fifth - of vodka - and never looking back much to my detriment. 😂
When we talk of chord sequences, for example I - IV - V, it's universally understood to be ascending e.g. C - F - G. It follows, logically, that we might think of intervals of notes in the same way. At least, that's the way I've always thought about it - but I understand your logic entirely.
Excellent video. I didn't even realize that I was confused about this, but I was! What I'd really like to know, though, is how long I need to do this stuff before I don't have to count on my fingers any more when working with intervals. :-)
I think the only part that needs to be emphasized is that when we speak of a perfect cadence, the ideal form involves a descending fifth in the baseline. But when we move through a circle of fifths progression, we obviously alternate between descending fifths and ascending fourths. It is necessary to mention at some point the direction that the fifths are going; down. And that a ascending fourth is considered equivalent. Now, by the rules of voice leading, each successive chord must be in a different inversion from the preceding chord in order to prevent parallel voices. Parallel fifths and fourths are a little like parallel octaves in that it sounds a little like enriching the timbre of a single melody by adding an harmonic to the voice rather than playing two voices. Doubling the baseline in classical music became acceptable, I believe, it was treated like a single baseline with a richer sound. Harmonies sound richer and less hollow when perfect fifths are avoided. In modern times, that hollowness can be considered a feature rather than a bug. Power Chords leave room for the distortion and other melody instruments to fill in the harmonies.
One further consideration is that the fifth interval is physically somewhat more fundamental than the fourth. For any given root frequency of a tone (say A440) the first harmonic of that frequency is the octave (A880) and the second harmonic is the fifth above the octave (E1320.) Of course, we could go in the downward direction instead and it would be equally valid mathematically: the fundamental (E1320) to the octave (E660) to the fourth (A440.) But in terms of physics, overtones arise more readily than undertones. It's easy to blow an overtone on a wind instrument, for example, or strike a harmonic overtone on a stringed instrument. Undertones require an instrument that itself is liable to resonate at the undertone frequency, like the drone strings on a sitar. So, overall, it's more physically plausible to think of the fifth interval than the fourth as harmonically related. This makes for a useful convention, but it's only that, not technically more correct one way or the other. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertone_series
I find it useful to use Roman numerals for chords and numbers for intervals. The 5 chord becomes a V chord - V being the number five in Roman numerals. This is different from P5, the interval perfect 5th. Going a step further I prefer using only Roman numerals in the upper case, but write mi after to signify a minor chord or m7(b5) for half diminished etc. Exemple of chords: |Imi |II° |bIII |IVmi | i.e. |Ami |B° |C |Dmi | |Ima7 |IImi7 |IIImi7 |V7 | i.e. |Cma7 |Dmi7 |Emi7 |G7 | Exemple of intervals: P1 m2 M3 P4
Monophonic instrumentalists have a hard time with this in my theory classes. Well explained.👍
Thanks! 😊
That’s me! (ex)Trumpet player persistently baffled by this.
@@chrishb7074, it’s not impossible to pick up on. I suggest reading up on ‘intervalic inversions’. It should set you on your way. GL!
Why? Ascending 4th or descending 5th is still applicable in a monophonic context.
Btw, whether it's ascending or descending, isn't it in most cases defined by the bass ?
Inverting 4ths and 5ths intervallically is synonymous to me. But its easier refer to it as going up or down to describe these interval inversion relationships to a given note, at least diatonically. If you were to go up from C to E its a major 3rd interval, to go down from C to E is a minor 6th interval. Going up from C to D is a major 2nd interval, to go down from C to D is a minor 7th interval. You should notice that going to the same note up and down, the two intervals always sum to 9, and if its a major interval going up, its a minor interval going down.
I’m not the most literate musically…
But I always thought of it as the circle of 5ths clockwise… and the circle of 4ths counter clockwise.
🤷♂️👍🎸
Same.
Me too. And my musical literacy is also not too swift
Εxactly, this makes perfect sense intuitively, especially if you play the piano.
Yes
@@Marina-pe1gx Same on guitar. A to D is a 4th. A to E is a 5th.
I'm so glad you posted this... I showed the previous video to my roommate and throughout the whole video he just kept shouting, "THAT'S NOT A FIFTH!!! THAT'S A FOURTH!! WHAT IS GOING ON???" lol
Great video. I was one of those confused people in the comments (I never said you were wrong I just didn't get it) and when you kindly explained to me in a response I started to get it and it's really helped with how my theory understanding.
Edit: I'm a bassist so I'm used to thinking in 4th for the strings, as you said here, and I mostly play monophonic. It's only now that I'm learning piano that I'm trying to think more on chords
The reason 4ths and 5ths are perfect is because the quality of the interval doesn't change when you invert it. If you invert a major 3rd for example, you get a minor sixth and so on will all intervals except for the 4th and 5th. Just one more way to look at things. But once you learn the number system, you will find that you now have a way to give what you are hearing a name. Most of us learned early on how to identify red because our parents had a name they could give it and we could then remember it. Most parents don't know what a 3rd "looks like" (or sounds like) so they couldn't identify it for us. But once you know the number system, you can in time learn to identify that sound just a surely as if it were a color so to speak. A 2nd sounds nothing like a 3rd and so on. There was my life in music before the number system, and then after. My ability to learn music went up immensely after that. Take the time, learn it and then apply it to what you hear and you will be amazed what happens after that. You'll be able to immediately pick out melodies and chord progressions become a snap to learn. It has nothing to do with perfect pitch, tho I suppose that would help if you had it. I call it relative pitch. How each note relates to the tonic, and what that relationship sounds like.
For me it’s always defined by key, so in A or Am, A to D is always perfect 4th. If it’s A7 to D, it’s implied you’re in D so becomes a perfect 5th.
@@slapmyfunkybass indeed! root movement is usually classified with not only it's direction but also by chord function. :)
@@slapmyfunkybass hmm, I would say both interpretation are subjective, because the invertion thing works for any interval apart from the tritone and it's not perfect anyway, and though the scale degree sounds better to me, the 2nd is the same in major, minor, lydian mixolydian, and dorian and it's not perfect either, I don't researched this but maybe it relates to the fact that 6 of 7 scale degrees of all the keys/modes have an interval a (perfect) fifth and a (perfect) fourth apart, while that isn't true for 2nds, 3rds, 6ths and 7ths
It’s weird that you act like you invented relative pitch
If you were to go up from C to E its a major 3rd interval, to go down from C to E is a minor 6th interval. Going up from C to D is a major 2nd interval, to go down from C to D is a minor 7th interval. You should notice that going to the same note up and down, the two intervals always sum to 9, and if its a major interval going up, its a minor interval going down and vice versa.
This explains why learning functional harmony is so important.
I have always been taught to look at it as if they were two circles, the circle of 5ths and the circle of 4ths, as depending on which direction you go, you have a certain feel towards them (circle of 5ths is the resolving circle, but circle of 4ths is the jazzy circle)
@@JakubJerzyK I know that they are ultimately the same circle, but the feeling is different depending on the direction you go, there is a different feel, which is why I like to say it's 2 different circles, cause their feel is different.
@@JakubJerzyK true
Or if we're speaking in more technical terms, authentic progressions (circle of 5ths) and plagal progressions (circle of 4ths). A plagal sound was commonly used in the rennaisance period, so I think it would do it disservice to just call it jazzy
@@methatis3013 Except that it isn't really a circle of fourths. You are just going backwards around the same old circle of fifths.
Utterly love this video! Impressively magnanimous. I'm not sure I could have avoided snark so well.
Very clearly explained, David, and as always, I learn every time I watch one of your videos. Thank you!
Thanks!! 😊😊
It's been bothering me for weeks. So obvious when you explained it. Well done and thanks.
Thank you 😊😊
This is excellent. Also liked the one that led to this. Wonderful application of logic and patterns. My default is ‘one direction is 5ths and the other is 4ths’ so appreciate your exploration of additional ways to think about and explain it to others. Really liked the discussion of intervals vs chord function. Great video topics.
Great topic-I have been waiting for this! Thank you for your excellent explanation and clearing up so much confusion about the Intervals of the Circle of Fifths!
It is an essential and amazing tool for all musicians. 👌
I hadn't seen the previous video or taken part in the argument at all. I was aware of the different ways to perceive chord changes since I took theory. But I still watched the whole thing because the clear explanation was nice.
Thanks for clearing that up. I also fell into the trap of confusing chord functions and intervals. From a chord functions point of view it is pretty different which way around you go as you either get a bunch of I-V's or a bunch of I-IV progressions. Which feels different. But as you said the intervals itself are basically interchangeable.
Exactly -- the Circle of Fifths and the Circle of Fourths are the same thing, but clockwise and anticlockwise sound very different, hence Circle of 4ths for anticlockwise
@@TableTopTroubadour No need for "circle of fourths." It's just backwards around the same old circle of fifths.
Such an incredibly beautiful put together example of a perfect educator. Taking questions finding out where that could have come from amd realizing when it is a valid critique. You deserve a teachers medal of some sort. I would argue for this video to be raised as an example in teaching standards!
Thank you! That really means a lot 😊😊😊
@@DavidBennettPiano i would be very interested in a discussion on your process to parse out the perspectives. And how long the production of the video took!
I’ve been trying to get better at ear training, and telling the difference between ascending and descending fourth intervals and fifth intervals is one of the harder skills for me to learn. (As a data point, I play guitar and I think of the circle of fifths as ascending in both directions.) Thanks for the explanation!
Fourths and Fifths can both be really difficult to identify by ear because they have such a similar consonant sound, particularly when played together rather than one after another.
How do you practice ear training? Been doing it for a while and I don't really feel any progrees
@@mugiwaranoDave I find the Tenuto app helpful as I can set it to do just a couple intervals and only descending or only ascending and then repeat those again and again until I start to get it right. Then, I"ll add in another interval, and another so that there are more options to guess amongst. After repeating just 4ths and 5ths descending a bunch of times, I hear how the 5th sounds more resolved to me. Going up, the 4th is the "Amen" feeling or "Ta da!" Any other app that lets you limit the intervals and direction ought to do it.
@@mugiwaranoDave Being serious; and trying not to be rude to David Bennett. The UA-camr Rick Beato has a ear training course that might help you,
@@peterkelley6344 @David Sharki Yes, I'm also using Rick Beato's ear training course. I try to supplement Rick's course this way when practicing the "all intervals" lesson: when I get an interval wrong, I'll play what I thought it was on the guitar, then find the actual interval on the guitar and try to internalize the difference between what I thought it was, and what it actually was. This seems to help me learn a little better, but I'm still working on it!
I'm still a bit of a novice at music theory, but I understood exactly what you're saying about the relation between fourths and fifths within the first minute of this video. The circle of fifths shows fifths in one direction (clockwise as show here) and fourths in the other (counter-clockwise) direction...which is a good reason to make a video about it. It's a simple thing in many ways, but it's also something that can be easily misunderstood. Over the course of time of watching your videos, I have seen that you give wonderfully simple, clear explanations of very useful musical concepts. Thank you for doing it this way, or more to the point, thank you for being a great music educator who helps people learn to make music.
This clears things up! Thank you David! 😉
i really loved this video, makes so much sense and explained so lucidly.
Thank you!
@@DavidBennettPiano HI DAVID :)))) love your work
your response to feedbak is majestic. looking forward to next video, i spied BSSM : )
😃😃😃😃
What a relief, I was so confused. Thanks for clearing that up!
I really appreciate the explanation about the difference between the melodic and harmonic cases.
So glad you did this
Good! I was very much in two minds about it
Love the recent content dude
Thanks 😊
I love this guy's attitude of "actually we're both right" instead of "i'm right you're wrong"
Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering about it at the time.
I stumbled over this paradox playing the accordion. Although I know that the chord-buttons on the left side of the accordion are all equally spaced, going upwards from the center button C (C - G - D - A, etc.) makes me think of perfect 5ths, while going downwards (C - F - Bb - Eb, etc.) suggests perfect 4ths.
Greetings from Vienna, Austria. I really love your channel!
One obviously has to distinguish between single notes (intervals) and chords (functions):
Single Notes:
C - G = perfect 5th UPwards
C - F = perfect 5th (!) DOWNwards
Chord Functions:
C = I
F = IV (!)
G = V
Since the chord buttons of an accordion are placed according to the Circle of fifths
Db - Ab - Eb - Bb - F - C - G - D - A - E - B - F#,
all adjacent buttons form the same pattern comprised of the three basic chord functions
IV - I - V:
Db - Ab - Eb, Ab - Eb - Bb, Eb - Bb - F, Bb - F - C, F - C - G, C - G - D, G - D - A, D - A - E, A - E - B, E - B - F#
Which by the way makes it exremely difficult to play something in the keys of Db or F#, because
Db (I) - Ab (V) and F#/Gb (IV),
or
B (IV) - F# (I) and Db/C# (V)
are on OPPOSITE sides of the left-hand manual!
(At least with the basic accordion size of 72 bass and chord buttons with 2 rows of bass buttons and 4 rows of chord buttons: major, minor, major7 and diminished.
12 notes x 6 rows = 72 buttons.)
I’m new to music theory and I had noticed that when a note 1 (let’s say G) is a perfect 5th to note 2 (C) note 2 (C) is a perfect 4th to note 1 (G) and always wondered why that was the case and thought it was cool. Awesome video 🙏🏼
Thanks David! Another brilliant breakdown of theory. I was in the circle of 4ths camp but your presentation here makes perfect (there's that word again) sense. Really dig your channel my friend. Always some great learning when I tune in. Look out Beato!!
Beautifully explained. Thanks. When you mentioned that guitar players are probably shouting 4ths 4ths 4ths at the screen then I nodded in agreeance.
That's so elucidating. Thanks!
😀😀😀😀
Another excellent video, David, thank you again.
Thanks Peter 😊
Beautiful Explanation
Thanks for clarifying that David, now I get it. Much appreciated 👍
Great!!
Thanks David! This really clears things up for me!
Great 😊
Very clear and helpful explanation of 4ths/5ths inversion, and a good reminder that there are usually multiple ways to see/hear the same thing! Edit: meant to also say I'm bookmarking this vid for whenever someone expresses confusion on this. A "perfect" reference!
I believe that's where some people are getting confused. For me something beautiful about music is that it's not about the theory and what you "see", rather than what you hear and this is something the creator is not being so good at pointing out. Cadences sound so much different from each other, the result is a emotional feeling even, and it's really not the same to call different things the same. The idea of calling things is to communicate, and yeah, we're not the best species at that, but this is confusing or simply wrong. Don't bookmark it.
That was SUPER helpful! Thanks for a great follow up video 👍
Thanks for clearing this up. I was really confused! Makes sense now.
Good 😊
Make that A major and we can really hear it as V to I. But then we move to harmonic minor sounds. Am moving to Dm sounds (to me) as ascending fourth movement. I think of the circle as the third method you mentioned. I remember your original video and wondered about your view of the circle. Thank you for this kind of insight and openness to comments from people. Very cool.
I feel like you kinda missed the point: there's no right answer. From a purely harmonic standpoint, a fourth is the same thing as a fifth, as there are really only 6 possible intervals, from a semitone to a tritone, and anything bigger than that is an inversion of one of those 6.
A to Dm isn't even necessarily V to i, it's also I to iv. You'll eventually realize that they're the same thing no matter the context, and the way you decide to call it is just one way to make sense of it, or to express the relationship between the two.
@@althealligator1467 didn’t miss the point, was adding my 2 cents. Rock on.
@@DoubleDguitar Oh I didn't mean that as an insult, but "it sounds to me like a perfect fourth" is indeed missing the point of the video which is that it doesn't matter whether it's a fifth or a fourth because they're the same thing. I mean good on you for giving your two cents though.
@@althealligator1467 hearing it is different than analyzing it, I feel. Definitely not taking as insult. Music is too wonderfully ambiguous to make worry over things like this, I know you know. So my take was to move to harmonic minor to emphasize the ear leading that happens there and how resolution from V to I can be so well pronounced. There have been sooo many times where I improvise between say a typical I to IV and start to hear the IV as the I. This ascending and descending analysis is exactly why our ears get pulled. Our eyes can help sort it mentally, while our ears tend to feel it in undefinable ways. I feel, anyway. Glad you said something. I enjoy theory talk.
@@DoubleDguitar Yeah l, understandable.
Anyway, I really like using the Parallel major tonic chord instead of its diatonic minor version in this "circle of fifths" progression. A great song that does that if I remember correctly is Je vais t'aimer by Michel Sardou.
I also usually like starting the progression on the iv or ii chord - whatever you wanna call it, depending on whether you're looking at it from the relative major or minor key - basically Dm in A minor or C major, and the Picardy third is a good way to lead back to the first chord, like this:
Dm
G
C
F
Bb
E
Am
A7
I also think having Bb instead of B° just sounds cooler, the Neapolitan chord us a classic trick. I would even argue that B° is essentially the same thing as Dm in that context.
Hell, if you've got time for it or wanna hear it, I can explain my whole version of music theory.
My basic theory was learned in a classical context, so it was the circle of 5ths. A few years ago I started learning jazz, and everybody called it the circle/cycle of 4ths. Of course I saw it was the same thing, but in functional harmony, perhaps under the influence of Schenker, the basic root movement was a descending 5th - probably because of the V I cadence, secondary dominants, etc.
It's good to put ideologies to one side.
Glad you cleared this up. I left kind of confused by the last vid.
Well said! That clarifies any confusion I had. Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve benefited greatly from this deeper explanation.
😊
This is why it’s a great thing for guitarist to also learn to play and compose on a piano/keyboard. As primarily a guitarist when I began to take piano seriously it helped in so many ways. Also this is after growing up with a piano in the house and actually the first instrument I ever experienced.
👍 I wondered about that before. The way you describe it makes sense.
Brilliantly put & exactly what I needed to hear!
this reminds me that "music is music" and "music theory" is our attempt to describe music in a way so we can talk (and reason) about it. There is a lot more nuance to music than we can hope to capture in language, especially since we may all experience it differently...
Nice one! Also, as a simple way of looking at this, if you 7th a chord, its resolution is a 5th (lower). e.g., G7 goes to C (V to I), C7 to F, and you go around the circle in this V to I manner. Thanks very much for these videos.
Every time I click on David's sight I learn something new. Brilliant!
Senpai noticed me, my life is now complete. Great video as always!
Excellent explanation!
Brilliant!
I see it as a circle of 5th, but I usually write in the relative minor inside the circle. Like am under C and so on it helps more, and in your first video when you used the minor chords you should have explained the relative relations they have and it would have made perfect sense. But thanks for great videos I enjoy them and learn much! Keep it up!
Shocked, this video was way more excepcional than the other
I’d say it’s an imperfect 9th.
You'd be wrong then. Its a horrible 4.5th
@@metalpuppet5798 Both wrong. It's a truly wretched 27th.
@@SeventhSwell Where is 12tone when you need him. He would have already made a 30 minute video about this single thread. And he would have somehow managed to fit a random history lesson in as well 😂😂
It's a plagal 78th obviously
Unless there is a specific key, and thus an explicit IVth or Vth chord, I would always think of the ascending interval only, regardless of the actual voicing of the chord. C > G is moving a Vth, G > C is moving a IVth (and I generally have to think through Hey Joe to get the right direction)
Schrödinger's interval: it's both a fifth and a fourth
meow
Dang that sik fuk put a cat in a bag with radioactive toxicity and passed it around at a party.Something like this.
I feel so bad for you, just reading some of these comments, there a so many people who don’t understand this clear, well made video and comment as if you are wrong.
Nice, thanks for the clarification! 👍
Thanks 😊
Thank you for the 5-1 4-1 ascending descending conundrum.
Great explanation David 😎
Without seeing this first, im gonna guess a perfect fourth
And after seeing it, yes im a guitarist but the way you explained makes sense. Which is reassuring for me, im starting to get this stuff. thank you david
You have a great channel David Bennett Piano. Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
It's a 6/2/5/1 progression in C Maj on the first 4 bars. You can look at the last four bars in two ways.
1: The last four bars are in C Maj with a E Maj 3rd sub, which is fine because the E Maj comes from the relative minor.
2: The addition of the Bdim to E Maj to Am suggests a Minor ii/V/I in the relative minor.
I would go with option 2 for Jazz and option 1 for Rock/pop.
Now you need to do a follow up to this video about whether it should be called "anti-clockwise" or "counter-clockwise". I'm always here to help. :)
😂😂
Dialectic thinking. Much needed in
this polarized world!
Well Done, it's really clear !!
Great explanation, thanks so much!
Thanks!
Good clear explanation 🙂
Thanks!
Thank you for sharing🎵🎶🎹
Maybe it's because my formative years of playing music were on bass clarinet, so I was never thinking in terms of chords until much later. I always thought about it as which note/chord you were starting from, not which one you landed on. To use your example, I always looked at A>D as a 4th interval, whereas D>A would be a 5th, whether you were ascending or descending.
And then I thought that maybe it was the key signature of the song that determined that, but your addressing that concept in this video has thrown me for a loop, and now I'm not sure what to think.
David, that was a brilliant explanation. I would guess that people who have studied physics would be biased toward thinking in fifths because its frequency is the most prominent in the harmonic series (besides the octaves). The harmonic series of a pitch consists of its integer multiples, for instance, if the fundamental is A= 110 cycles/sec, the first 4 harmonics are 220=A (octave), 330=E (FIFTH), 440=A (octave) and 550=C# (third).
That wouldn't make sense because going up in 4ths or down in 5ths would put you on the same note. I think people just prefer thinking of it as going up a 4th from the 1 to 4 than going down a 5th from 1-4.
Mind blown.
Very useful (as usual). Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
You're spot on when it comes me, growing up with guitar and seeing this layout of 4ths in my head. My son would have to learn the (more objective/neutral) piano first instead!
I try to keep the circle of 5th as simple as possible. There were many times I got frustrated with the circle of death and wouldn’t use it. V I Perfect Cadence
Notes / chords. The exception of ascending. Then, as chords go, I believe a IV I cadence no matter how it’s inverted even using incorrect parallel 5ths, leaving gaps etc. IV I is called a Plagal Cadence. 4-1 ie Amen.
Someone can call it whatever he likes.
The important thing is to know how to build that chord progression and why it sounds so natural and beautiful.
David is a great teacher anyway.
Thanks for making this video, I did comment on the original video, and I am a guitar player, and you did comment back, and I just didn’t feel like discussing it, what you said does make sense it being a 4th or 5 th depending on whether your ascending and descending, and as far as being a guitar player and how I view it , has really nothing to do with the tuning of the guitar, the disagreement was from how I was taught the circle of fifths, going clockwise (c to g to etc) are fifth’s and counter clock wise are 4th (f to Bb to Eb), not the tuning of the guitar. The other thing to consider is music theory is not taught for guitar,it’s taught for piano, the formulas for scales,chord construction etc music theory wise work perfectly for piano, ( I don’t know how it works for other instruments, say wind instruments) but say construction of the major scale on piano YOU HAVE TO LEARN Whole Whole ,half, Whole Whole, Whole, Half to play a major scale, on the guitar you just have to learn a “pattern” or “shape” and to play different major scales you don’t CHANGE the pattern or shape you just move it up or down, even with chords, say to make a Major chord to a minor, on Piano you have to learn the formula 1,3,5 is major to make a minor 1,b3,5 on guitar with barre chords all you have to do with a “E” shaped barre chord is lift a finger to make a E an E minor, that’s where some of the confusion and bewilderment comes from when discussing the music theory comes from when you have a bunch a guitar players watching music theory explained/taught on a piano.Thanks for making the video, and being open minded enough to say “ Hey,maybe I could
be wrong, or I wasn’t clear enough “ from a fellow musician to another I really appreciate the humility! Too often it’s your not only wrong, your wrong and a idiot for even questioning me!!😂 Cheers!
3:58 I disagree with this particular point. The whole reason why the Circle movement "works" so well to establish a new key is because it SOUNDS like a perfect cadence! Therefore, from this point of view, it is correct to describe the movement as V-I.
That's kind of what I was thinking. Even an Am to Dm move in C major carries a V-I feel, since Am is the v of Dm, just in the same way that Dm is the five of G. That's what makes the ii-V-I work so well. We can't call those movements of a fourth unless we're going to call the cadential V-I a fourth, when we're moving from _five_ to _one_.
Exactly. Moving counter clockwise is a series of V -> I authentic cadences. Moving clockwise is a series of I -> V half cadences. This video is very wrong.
That helps me to understand what I've Always thought about Vivaldi's music. The majority of his music sounded like it had circle of fifths progressions that I wasn't so sure was going in fifths. It turns out I was right, it was circle of fifths, but it was happening in Forths.
Well explained David. I’ve always wondered when going up in 4ths (as far as the root of the chord) why it was called circle of fifths.
I had to look up what backmasking is, and it seems like a fun concept. The only example I can think of is the special version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" used on the Simpsons episode he appeared in haha
😂 Great example!
Nice video dude 💪🏻
This has forever confused me and I was always too embarrassed to ask for clarity.
Thx for the explanation!
The way we did harmony (including counterpoint), we would think of notes in terms of the destination key, the topic being I or i. If D is I, then A is V. When we had secondary dominants, we would label them and include their function. So D major to G in the key of C would be II (V of V) to V. We did everything in capitals for some reason, no lower case roman numerals.
We would do all the secondary dominants, including what he called x (V of VII), and the fourths ended with N (IV of IV). That's the neapolitan, and there was a French, German and Italian version of those.
Great addendum, wish I could click the like button several times 😄
Thanks! 😀 and perhaps make some fake accounts and like the button with them 😉😂
@@DavidBennettPiano Haha yeah maybe not... 😄 Hope the comments are helpful a bit 🙂
As a sidenote, my guitarist mind goes even one step further into what you explain in this video, as when I play I Will Survive, I feel it like going up a fourth, then down a fifth, then up a fourth, then down a fifth.... The instrument really shapes perspective
As a Viola player, I've always thought of it as the circle of fifths, because the strings on a Viola (and on a Violin, and on a Cello) are all in fifths. But a Bass player might think differently because their strings are all in fourths.
As a guitarist I was taught of it as a circle of fifths so IDK
I think this explains why I got so confused in music theory class (two different descriptions of the same thing), got hopelessly lost, and dropped the course. I didn’t give it another thought for 45 years when I “re-discovered” the Circle of 5ths and found it fascinating and eye-opening. I wish this video would have been available back then. I vaguely remember hearing “looking forward it’s fourths, looking back it’s fifths”. I chose going to get a fifth - of vodka - and never looking back much to my detriment. 😂
Fifth of vodka 💀
When we talk of chord sequences, for example I - IV - V, it's universally understood to be ascending e.g. C - F - G. It follows, logically, that we might think of intervals of notes in the same way. At least, that's the way I've always thought about it - but I understand your logic entirely.
Very helpful! Thank you!
Excellent video. I didn't even realize that I was confused about this, but I was! What I'd really like to know, though, is how long I need to do this stuff before I don't have to count on my fingers any more when working with intervals. :-)
Great explanation
Well done, sir
Thanks for the video ! Very informative
Nice review!
I think the only part that needs to be emphasized is that when we speak of a perfect cadence, the ideal form involves a descending fifth in the baseline. But when we move through a circle of fifths progression, we obviously alternate between descending fifths and ascending fourths. It is necessary to mention at some point the direction that the fifths are going; down. And that a ascending fourth is considered equivalent. Now, by the rules of voice leading, each successive chord must be in a different inversion from the preceding chord in order to prevent parallel voices. Parallel fifths and fourths are a little like parallel octaves in that it sounds a little like enriching the timbre of a single melody by adding an harmonic to the voice rather than playing two voices. Doubling the baseline in classical music became acceptable, I believe, it was treated like a single baseline with a richer sound. Harmonies sound richer and less hollow when perfect fifths are avoided. In modern times, that hollowness can be considered a feature rather than a bug. Power Chords leave room for the distortion and other melody instruments to fill in the harmonies.
One further consideration is that the fifth interval is physically somewhat more fundamental than the fourth. For any given root frequency of a tone (say A440) the first harmonic of that frequency is the octave (A880) and the second harmonic is the fifth above the octave (E1320.)
Of course, we could go in the downward direction instead and it would be equally valid mathematically: the fundamental (E1320) to the octave (E660) to the fourth (A440.)
But in terms of physics, overtones arise more readily than undertones. It's easy to blow an overtone on a wind instrument, for example, or strike a harmonic overtone on a stringed instrument. Undertones require an instrument that itself is liable to resonate at the undertone frequency, like the drone strings on a sitar.
So, overall, it's more physically plausible to think of the fifth interval than the fourth as harmonically related. This makes for a useful convention, but it's only that, not technically more correct one way or the other.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertone_series
Legend!
Great explanation. Thanks!
Very thorough
Cheers 😊
@@DavidBennettPiano
Cheers David, love your channel!
Thanks John 😊
I find it useful to use Roman numerals for chords and numbers for intervals. The 5 chord becomes a V chord - V being the number five in Roman numerals. This is different from P5, the interval perfect 5th. Going a step further I prefer using only Roman numerals in the upper case, but write mi after to signify a minor chord or m7(b5) for half diminished etc. Exemple of chords: |Imi |II° |bIII |IVmi | i.e. |Ami |B° |C |Dmi |
|Ima7 |IImi7 |IIImi7 |V7 | i.e. |Cma7 |Dmi7 |Emi7 |G7 |
Exemple of intervals: P1 m2 M3 P4