Circle of 5ths Cycling

We can use the Circle of 5ths to test our fluency across the fretboard. Let's check it out.

Now, we can apply this idea to any scale, chord or arpeggio shape!

The purpose of this exercise is to build confidence playing your shapes in every key, and to get you comfortable working with octaves and jumping around the fretboard.

Here it is applied to a Major Chord shape, moving upwards by 5ths. I used octaves to keep it in a comfortable range. Notice how it almost looks like we're moving downwards by 4ths because of the octave jumps.

My favorite way to use this, though, is with a new arpeggio shape I'm working on memorizing.

For example, here is the C Shape Arpeggio moving downwards by 4ths. Again, it can be a little confusing to keep track of the movements because of the octave jumps, but try to make sense of it!

Once you're comfortable with the concept, this is a pretty good way to get warmed up across the fretboard, or to bulletproof your memorization of a new shape.

It's a little confusing at first, but stick with it. This will grow your playing ability in more ways than one!