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You may know of Michael Angelo Batio as a high octane shredder on anything up to a four-neck electric guitar, and soon-to-be Manowar guitarist, but he's also an excellent guitar teacher for players of all levels, and recently stopped by Sweetwater to introduce the relationships between chords with the circle of fifths with a video lesson.
It's a good starter for beginner players too. The circle of fifths is often shown in the diagram of a circle that you can see below.
Going around the circle clockwise, each note or key is separated by an interval of a perfect 5th. The circle groups together all the 12 major keys with their relative minors. A relative key is simply defined as the minor key that uses the same notes as a particular major key, or a major key that uses the same notes as a particular minor key.
Michael Angelo Batio illustrates it in the video above, and to find out more check out our circle of fifths overview.
Check out the tutorial book Guitar Solo 2.0 Michael's lesson is based on at Sweetwater.
Michael Angelo Batio's top 5 tips for guitarists
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Rob is the Reviews Editor for GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars, so spends most of his waking hours (and beyond) thinking about and trying the latest gear while making sure our reviews team is giving you thorough and honest tests of it. He's worked for guitar mags and sites as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years but still winces at the thought of restringing anything with a Floyd Rose.
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