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The Order of the Sharps and Flats
in the Circle of Fifths

Easy Memorization Method For Guitarists
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           To know the order of the sharps and flats in the circle of fifths is an elementary musical task that is expected of every educated musician. Just as you learned to tie your shoes, learned to tell time by the clock, and memorized the months of the year ("30 days hath September", etc.) - as a musician, to memorize the circle of 5ths is a basic step towards musical competence in our western musical culture. In common with the clock and the calendar, there is a circle of 12 elements with names and identifiable characteristics. See the Circle of Fifths Chart (opens in new window.)

The sharps and flats, as they occur through the circle of fifths, are laid out in order right on the guitar fingerboard. To memorize this simple pattern is as ridiculously easy and obvious as the counting-on-the-knuckles method of remembering the long and short months of the year.

order of sharps and flats image The order of the sharps is as follows:
  1. F#
  2. C#
  3. G#
  4. D#
  5. A#
  6. E#
  7. (B#, which would follow, is never used in a key signature)
The order of the flats is as follows:
  1. Bb
  2. Eb
  3. Ab
  4. Db
  5. Gb
  6. Cb
  7. (Fb, which would follow, is never used in a key signature)
These sharps and flats are laid out on the fingerboard like this:

Order of the Sharps and Flats in the circle of fifths

As you can see, they are almost identical, but in reverse order. If we had another treble string, a high "A", then the Cb would show up there on the 2nd fret. Notice the "dogleg" in the pattern when it crosses from the B string to the G string, and vice versa.

To recognize a key signature, all you have to do is to count the number of sharps or flats. (Sharps and flats are never used together in the same key signature.)

Here is the table of key signatures with the names of the major and minor keys associated with each:



It is not necessary to figure out what the specific sharps or flats are, because they are always the same for any given number of sharps or flats (except in very rare cases, which we have seen, where either the composer doesn't know what he or she is doing, or has decided to break the rules for some specific and personal reason). One sharp is always F# (either G Major or E Minor.) A key signature with two sharps always contains F# and C#, a key signature with 3 sharps always contains F#, C# and G#, and so on, adding in the sharps in the list one at a time for each additional sharp. Similarly the flat keys begin with one flat - Bb - and as the number of flats in the key signature rises, the succeeding flats are added in, in the order they appear in the list.

The key signature with 6 sharps, F# major / D# Minor, is identical in sound to the one with 6 flats, Gb Major / Eb Minor. These 2 different key signatures are to be considered synonyms - there are not actually two different keys here in terms of actual sound, although it is very helpful to be able to think either in terms of sharps or flats. The area of the circle of fifths where the sharps and flats begin to overlap is conceptually difficult for all musicians, and requires a certain amount of study and clear thinking to resolve. This difficulty really results more from the notation and nomenclature than from the practicality of performance, and is a regrettable product of the notation system itself, which was originally not designed or intended (at the time of its invention more than a thousand years ago) to be used for a complete circle of fifths, and began to be turned to that purpose only after several centuries of use.

Each major key shares a key signature with its relative minor, as you can see from the Circle of Fifths Chart. Some musicians we have met try to classify the relative major and relative minor keys together as a single key, or a single "tonality", since they are so closely related. This is a misleading over-simplification. They are related in that they share a key signature and in that modulation from one to the other is very easy and almost transparent, but they are both separate modes and separate keys.

In our western system of music (as opposed to other musical systems as Hindu Raga, Arabic Maqam, Balinese Gamilan, etc., which are distinctly different languages) we use - for the most part - only 2 modes, the Major and Minor.

(There are, of course, many other modes besides major and minor which are possible and available to musicians. However, the particular set which has come to be emphasized in the west — the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian modes — have no particular special value other than that they contain the same series of intervals as a Major Scale beginning on its various different notes. There are lots of other creative possibilities for arrangements of tones with different series of intervals which do not have special Greek names. Looking further afield to a more sophisticated modal system, the Hindustani and Karnatic Raga systems have, in theory, 10,000 modes - including their versions of all of the other modes mentioned on this page plus 9,990 more. (Probably no human musician can master 10,000 modes, but the idea is that there are many, many possibilities for personal and regional stylistic variations.) We maintain that in modern western usage, the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian modes are usually taught and used only as inversions of the Major Scale and rarely have any independent practical use. There are some examples of independent practical use, yes, but these are so few as to be specifically identifiable as special cases, and there are historical uses of some of them in older western folk music, but absolutely none of the Locrian, which is a completely artificial invention. As far as folk music goes, the "Greek Set" does not cover all the historical examples anyway. For instance, it contains no pentatonic mode, which is used in music all over the world. So, as we tell all our students, please don't get too hung up on the modes with the greek names. It's useful to know them but they are a very limited set and if you are really going to study modes there is a great deal to learn besides them. For now, for practical music making, just make sure that you know your major and minor modes thoroughly.)

12 keys or 24 keys?

Following the example set by J. S. Bach with the "Well Tempered Clavier", it was common in the 19th century to speak of 24 keys — 12 Major, and 12 Minor. This is workable as long as no other modes are permitted than the Major and Minor modes. It confuses the concepts of Key and Mode.

A better way to look at the circle of fifths is to consider that there are 12 Keys (in our western system). The twelve keys are:
  1. A
  2. Bb (A# is never used for a key)
  3. B
  4. C
  5. C# (minor) / Db (major)
  6. D
  7. E
  8. Eb (major or minor) (rarely D#, minor only)
  9. F
  10. F# (major or minor) / Gb (major only)
  11. G
  12. Ab (major) / G# (minor)
In the cases of keys with alternate names for the major and minor modes, the name allowing the fewer sharps or flats is more convenient. For instance, Gb minor requires 9 flats (5 regular flats and 2 double-flats) — this is unworkable for practical purposes, so we use F# minor instead. On each keynote we can build a major scale or a minor scale, or any of the possible hundreds or even thousands of other possible scales with their corresponding modes, including the "Greek Set". In this way the door is left open to consider the possibility of using other modes besides the Major and Minor - a more flexible position.


At Guitar Vacation Retreats we specialize in teaching music theory to guitarists. See the page on our Teaching Philosophy, and our Retreats page.


Counting the months on your knuckles

Oh, you don't know this one? Well: make a fist of your right hand.
  1. Place your left index finger on the knuckle where the right index meets the back of the hand, and say "January". This is a long month with 31 days.
  2. Place the left index in the gap between the knuckle of the right index and middle fingers, and say "February". This is a short month with 28 days (or 29 at leap year)
  3. Touch the knuckle of the middle finger and say "March". This is a long month with 31 days.
  4. Touch the gap between the middle and ring finger knuckles and say "April". Short month - 30 days.
  5. Touch the knuckle of the ring finger and say "May". Long month - 31 days.
  6. Touch the gap between the ring and pinky knuckles and say "June". Short month - 30 days.
  7. Touch the pinky knuckle and say "July". Long month - 31 days.
  8. Return to the index knuckle and say "August". Long month - 31 days.
  9. Touch the gap between index and middle and say "September". Short month - 30 days.
  10. Touch the knuckle of the middle finger and say "October". Long month - 31 days.
  11. Touch the gap between the middle and ring finger knuckles and say "November". Short month - 30 days.
  12. Touch the knuckle of the ring finger and say "December". Long month - 31 days.
There are seven long months and five short ones.


Last page update 08-30-08