Why DJs renamed the Circle of Fifths

This video is sponsored by MixedInKey. Did you know that when DJs mix from one track to another, they're often using the circle of fifths? You know, the same circle of fifths that's at the core of our music theory. But, they don't call it the circle of fifths, they call it the Camelot Wheel. So, why are they

doing this? Well, as you can imagine, when you're transitioning from one track to another, to get a smooth, satisfying overlap between the two tracks, you ideally want the two tracks to be not only in basically the same tempo, but also the same key. For example, I've Got My Mind Set on You by George Harrison

and Turn Around by Fats Waller are both in the same key of E major. So, if I subtly adjust their tempos to match, I can blend cleanly from one to [music] the other.

>> [music]

>> So, when two songs are in the same key, that's the most reliable way to transition between [music] them cleanly.

But, we could transition between two songs even if their keys are different, as long as those two keys are related.

And how do we know which keys are related? The circle of fifths, or the Camelot Wheel, as DJs call it. The most closely related two keys you can have are the relative major and minor. So, for example, the relative minor of E major, which is the key we're currently in with Turn Around, is C sharp minor.

So, we could transition from Turn Around into a song that's in C sharp minor, like this. >> [music]

[music] >> This works so well because relative major and minor keys are exactly the same notes. We're just treating a different one as our sort of focus point, as our tonic note. But, effectively, they're the same notes, they're modes of each other. So, just like how we could transition cleanly

between two songs that are in the key of E, we can transition cleanly between two songs that are in E and C sharp minor.

But the main reason that DJs are using the circle of fifths or the Camelot wheel is not for relative majors and minors, but for what we call closely related keys. On the circle of fifths or the Camelot wheel, the keys that are adjacent to each other, i.e. 1 degree to the right or left around the circle, are

what we call closely related, which means they literally have all but one note in common. With each degree you go around the circle, you're changing one note in the scale. So, C and G are 1 degree apart and they have one note different in their scales. C and E are 4 degrees apart and they have four notes