Chord wheel - anyone have one on file?

I was going to build myself a little handy chord wheel so I could figure out chord relationships and key changes quickly, but then I thought I could ask here: does anyone already have such a beast in some printable file? PDF?

I know, I can buy one ready-made, but why? I cam make a simple one and if no one else has one to offer, I'll post it here when I'm done.

Wiil this one work for you?

Nice find kanaka! I'm going to print that thing out as soon as possible.

how does that work??? sorry for a noob question

drifterx said:

how does that work??? sorry for a noob question

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Funny you should ask...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ZHSipQfy4

Mary-Anne

drifterx said:

how does that work??? sorry for a noob question

Click to expand...

Let's say you find a song in key of A, with chords A, D, E (this is a simple example). You want to play it in C. You turn the inner wheel so the inner A lines up with the outer C. Then look at the inner D and you'll see it reads F on the outer wheel, and the E reads G. So now you know you need to play C-F-G instead of A-D-E.

Make sense?

You can also use it to figure out a key for uke chords when you have guitar tablature or chords. Since a standard uke is a fifth up from a standard guitar, you just go clockwise around the wheel from the guitar key one key to get the uke key. So if the guitar key is C then the uke key is G.

I've made one into a PDF file I'll post here tonight. Easy to print and build.

Edit:
Ooops. It's a whoppingly huge 46kb. Sigh. The limit for PDF here is 19.5 k;, absolutely ridiculously tiny. I'll post it on another forum and drop a link here. Sorry.

Edit:Stuck it in my own forum. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

Uploaded it to an area non-members can reach:
www.ianchadwick.com/essays/ukulele/chord%20wheel.pdf

I converted all text to curves, so it's bigger now (650 kb).

It's just a circle of 5ths. C is the "first", it's 5th is G, whose 5th is D, whose 5th is A, whose 5th is E.. and so on. It can be handy since so many songs are structured on it.

If you don't want to use a wheel, you can use Roman numerals: I II III IV V VI VII I. Let's say you wanted to play a chord scale for C major. I is C, II is D, III is E, IV is F, V is G, VI is A, VII is B, and I is C.

So you can take these Roman numerals and apply them to any other key you want to play in. Let's take the very common chord progression of I-IV-V-I. In C that's C-F-G-C. If you want to play it in A, those Roman numerals are still I-IV-V-I. So, applying the A scale to that, we now have A-D-E-A.

No need for a magic wheel, just know the scales.

mctrmt said:

Funny you should ask...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ZHSipQfy4

Mary-Anne

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Nice and helpful vid you got there mary-anne. +rep for you

Plainsong said:

It's just a circle of 5ths. C is the "first", it's 5th is G, whose 5th is D, whose 5th is A, whose 5th is E.. and so on. It can be handy since so many songs are structured on it.

If you don't want to use a wheel, you can use Roman numerals: I II III IV V VI VII I. Let's say you wanted to play a chord scale for C major. I is C, II is D, III is E, IV is F, V is G, VI is A, VII is B, and I is C.

So you can take these Roman numerals and apply them to any other key you want to play in. Let's take the very common chord progression of I-IV-V-I. In C that's C-F-G-C. If you want to play it in A, those Roman numerals are still I-IV-V-I. So, applying the A scale to that, we now have A-D-E-A.

No need for a magic wheel, just know the scales.

Click to expand...

ooo so that's what circle of 5ths are. i've always heard about them but never really knew what they were.

If you go to www.circle-of-fifths.net you can learn about the circle of fifths and print one out. Plainsong's way seems pretty easy also.

tripl3thr33 said:

ooo so that's what circle of 5ths are. i've always heard about them but never really knew what they were.

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I thought it was some kind of wizard's circle.

I guess it's because of the order I learned this stuff. When I was a kid in band, we didn't use the circle of 5ths, and it wasn't until the end of highschool that I saw it. It just seemed like an extra thing, and cool that it worked like that, but it didn't help me visually.

But I think the circle of 5ths is a great tool for adults learning music I think. It's tougher when we get older because we tend to ask "Why" a lot. And in music, at least when you're starting out, there is no "Why" - it just "is." Of course there are answers to the Why's, but they won't make sense until you learn what you have to learn first.

This from a person who can read music, but not on a ukulele.

thanks guys your awesome