ok basically what im trying to ask is you look at the circle of 5ths to figure out what key your playing in and many other things correct? no im trying to transpose a song i wrote but i have no idea what ky it is so i was going to use the circle of fifths. the note i have is an f# but wait is the F# note not also an Gd note. so im wondering which one i use the flat or the sharp because if i use it as a falt i would be in a different key than if i used it as a sharp. Does that make better sense?
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I don't really understand your question?
That could be due to the lack of punctuation, and extreme amounts of typos thouhg :P
Can you edit it, and take out the typos?
What exactly is it you're trying to transpose? Do you have sheet music? Is it tab? Is it audio (mp3, cda)?
The only way the circle of fifths is going to help determine the key is if you have the sheet music with key signature. If you have that, then you know whether they are talking sharps or flats.
Knowing the notes/chords played is going to help determine the key, not the circle of fifths.
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Yes, it makes sense to me - I think you're just having a hard time expressing it.
Yes, F# and Gb represent the same tone. No, F# and Gb are not the same note. This if a farily common point of confusion in theory: the tone, or sound, is the same, but the note, which is representation of the sound, has its own rules.
Here's why:
G major scale: G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G
Proposed alternative: G-A-B-C-D-E-Gb-G
Notice that the one with the F# has only one F note, and it's always sharp. Because of that, you can write it in the key signature. The alternative has TWO G notes, one natural and one flat. If you write Gb in the key signature, you'll need to use an accidental in the music every time you want the G natural. The music gets much more confusing.
The circle of fifths doesn't show you what key you're playing in. It can show you the number of accidentals a key has, and you can match that up with the key signature - it's the key signature that shows you what key you're in.
The circle of fifths does show you some other things that are useful: keys that are next to each other in the circle are closely related, because they share half their scale:
C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
.............G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G
...........................D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D
The circle of fifths also shows you the basic I-IV-V chords for any key. If you read it clockwise, it's in fifths, so the next letter will be the V chord... and if you go counterclockwise it's in fourths, so the next letter will be the IV chord. Memorizing the circle of fifths is one way to learn those I-IV-V progressions. For example, if you're in Eb (three flats), the IV chord will be Ab (four flats), and the V chord will be Bb (two flats).
The circle is also useful for transposition. If you want to go from G to Ab, and the original sequence of notes is:
G-B-D-F#-G-D-Bb-G (with Bb noted as an accidental, since it doesn't occur in the key), you would do the following steps:
1. Figure out the difference between the root letters without the accidentals. In this case, G to A is moving one step higher
2. Write the notes, again without accidentals, one step higher (for this example you'll have A-C-E-G-A-E-C-A)
3. Add the new key signature of four flats
4. Look at the notes in the original that are altered by accidentals - in this case there's one, Bb, in the original. That's one half step lower than the note in the key signature (B natural). In the new key, this is written as A. In the new key, A is already flat, so to lower it one half step you'll need to write it as Abb.
Make sense?
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