The relative minors of all of these keys (B minor, E minor, and F sharp minor) are also closely related to D major. Using the circle of fifths, we find that the most closely related major keys (one in each direction) are G major, with only one sharp, and A major, with three sharps. Examples about the circle of fifth and key signatures If you go up a perfect fifth (clockwise in the circle), you get the key that has one more sharp or one less flat if you go down a perfect fifth (counterclockwise), you get the key that has one more flat or one less sharp. The circle of fifths gets its name from the fact that as you go from one pie slice to the next in the circle, you are going up or down by an interval of a perfect fifth.

The keys that are most distant from C major, with six sharps or six flats, are on the opposite side of the circle. The next most closely related keys to C major would be G major (or E minor), with one sharp, and F major (or D minor), with only one flat. This puts them in the same “slice” of the circle. So the most closely related key to C major, for example, is A minor, since they have the same key signature (no sharps and no flats). What makes two keys “closely related” is having similar key signatures. Keys are not considered closely related to each other if they are near each other in the chromatic scale (or on a keyboard). In theory, one could continue around the circle adding flats or sharps (so that B major is also C flat major, with seven flats, E major is also F flat major, with 6 flats and a double flat, and so on), but in practice such key signatures are very rare. The major key for each key signature is shown as a capital letter the minor key as a small letter. The circle of fifths is a way to arrange keys to show how closely they are related to each other.

Correct order of flats