Wobbie Wobbit Jukebox

Soup Pie

Wobbie Wobbit - FAWM 2015

Circle of Fifths

Middle C
Most famous and friendly piano key
The note you're most likely to know
In the middle to the left of the two black notes

Then you can find all the other Cs
Higher
Lower
Well you can find them all
All called C
Between each C it's an "octave"

And what that means scientifically
Is you're doubling or halving the frequency
Of the sound waves as they travel through the air
Slower Lower
Faster Higher

This is what an octave sounds like cut up into 12 notes
Equally divided into intervals of "semitones"

Some of those make a Major scale
Seven divisions and the eighth is the octave

The first, third and fifth notes
Make a "triad"
And these make up a chord

C C major
Our Home Key
Or "tonic"

Halfway up the octave is the "dominant"
The fifth note of the tonic major scale
Halfway down the octave is the "subdominant"
The fourth note of the tonic major scale

Add the triad of these notes
And every note in the major scale is covered
Chords I IV and V
The most important harmonic building blocks
The subdominant leads up to the dominant
Which wants to go home
To the tonic

Of course if you really want to push it home
Add a minor seventh to that triad
And it really wants to go home

The tonic is quite naturally
The dominant of its subdominant key
Push it forward with the seventh
A new tonic
F our old subdominant
Make that the dominant
Add the seventh
And it pushes forward
To a new tonic

And round the circle we go
Falling by half octaves
All the way round the circle of fifths
Anti-clockwise
Adding a flat each time

If you go clockwise you add a sharp each time
You can remember it with this line:
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father

It not only shows you the order of keys
But the order and the names of the sharps and flats
Sharps... (Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle)
Flats... (Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father)
How clever is that?

Oh look we're home

Listen to all tracks from Soup Pie