The circle of fifths and circle of fourths are the same wheel read in opposite directions. Click any key to see its signature, its relative minor, its neighbors, and its diatonic chords — then play them to hear how it all connects.
Reading direction:
01 — The Wheel
Outer ring: major keys. Inner ring: their relative minors. Moving clockwise = up a fifth. Moving counter-clockwise = up a fourth.
02 — Why It Matters
The wheel isn't just a memory trick — it's a map of how keys and chords relate to each other.
01Key Signatures, Memorized
Every clockwise step adds one sharp; every counter-clockwise step adds one flat. The order sharps get added in is F–C–G–D–A–E–B, and flats are added in the exact reverse: B–E–A–D–G–C–F. Once you know a key's position on the wheel, you know its key signature without memorizing it separately.
02Relative Major & Minor
Every major key shares a key signature with a minor key — its relative minor, shown on the inner ring. They use the exact same notes; the only difference is which note feels like "home." This is why a lot of gospel and neo-soul progressions can drift between a major and minor feel without ever leaving the key.
03Dominant & Subdominant Are Your Neighbors
The key one step clockwise from your tonic is your dominant (V) — the chord that wants to resolve home. One step counter-clockwise is your subdominant (IV). This is the entire backbone of the I–IV–V progression: it's just you and your two closest neighbors on the wheel.
04ii–V–I Moves Around the Circle
A ii–V–I — the most common jazz, gospel, and neo-soul cadence there is — is just three consecutive stops on the wheel moving counter-clockwise into the tonic. Try the ii–V–I button below on any key and watch the highlighted nodes walk straight around the circle.
05Secondary Dominants
A "V of V" borrows the dominant from a neighboring key on the wheel to briefly tonicize a chord that isn't your I — it's how you get that momentary pull toward a chord before resolving back home. On the wheel, it's just temporarily treating a nearby key as the center.
06Tritone Substitution
The key directly across the circle from any dominant chord — six steps away, the furthest point on the wheel — shares two of the same critical notes and can substitute for it in a ii–V–I. That's the whole idea behind tritone subs: opposite sides of the same wheel, doing the same job.
Selected key
Currently sounding
Inner ring — relative minor, same key signature
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