The Key & Chord Wheel
Every key comes with seven chords built on its scale. This wheel lays them out in order — I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii° — and colours each one by the job it does. Pick a key, click a chord to hear it, and play the progressions that power real songs. If the Circle of Fifths tells you which keys are related, this tells you what to do once you're in one.
How to use it while composing
- Stay in the key. Build a song using only these seven chords and it will always sound settled.
- Follow the colours. Travel from a tonic chord, through a subdominant, to a dominant, then home — the shape of most music.
- Lean on I, IV and V. The three major chords (in a major key) will harmonise almost any simple melody.
- Borrow a progression. Try I–V–vi–IV under a tune of your own — it has carried a thousand hit songs.