Hey Folks,

I am trying to get a deeper understanding of what people mean by "following the circle of fifths" and am using the Moon River citation as an example.

As far as I understand it, the Circle of Fifths essentially lets you see the 7 chords that are "logical" to use in any key, though you are free to borrow chords or "steal" from related keys as long as they sound nice.

At the bottom is an image of that representation in the C of Key. When I am in C, I often use Eb, G# and Bb and Gm too for the surprise effect, or Fm when I want to get all John Lennon.

But here are the chords (more or less, taken from the web) for Moon River.

The song essentially uses most of the chords that are logical in the key of C, plus others that just sound good, like Fm7.

In light of the wheel, what do we mean when we say we are "following" the circle of fifths? I hope I am not being dense and it is an honest question. Do we mean we are using it as a reference of acceptable chords, or that we are following a specific hop-scotching sequence of sorts? I have always been intrigued when people have use the word "following" in this context and have always wanted to know what that means.

Not to say the term "following" has been used in this thread yet, but I hear that term a lot.


Moon River

C Am F Em

F Em

Dm6 E7 Am C

F A#7

Am Fm75 B Em Am Dm7 G7



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