Spinning Circle of Fifths

Free Laser Designs
1

I have something for you music theory nerds! Here’s my design for a spinning circle of fifths for all 7 modes. It’s made of 2 discs attached at the center with a small screw. The bottom disc shows all of the key signatures you’d see on a circle of fifths, and the top disc rotates and has windows. Through the windows you can see the keys associated with the key signatures.

The first set of windows (labeled I) show the keys for the Ionian (major) mode:

CircleMajorMode
CircleMajorMode567×600 94.5 KB

The other sets of windows show the keys for the other modes: ii shows Dorian keys, iii shows Phrygian keys, IV Lydian, V Mixolydian, vi Aeolian (minor), and vii Locrian.

Minor keys:

CircleMinorMode
CircleMinorMode567×564 86.4 KB

It’s a companion piece to the scale calculator I designed last year, and I’ll probably design more devices like these in the future.

SpinnerOfFifths.svg.zip (80.8 KB)

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This is so cool! Printing it for my daughter. Thanks!!

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Thanks very much. Don’t stay away so long next time.

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Wow, very cool! I don’t understand it at all, but I bet my son will. Maybe he can use it for his theory homework…I really have no clue…my job was to buy the book… :rofl:

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Oh this brings back memories of the music theory classes I took in college. Great design!

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Now that is a really useful item! Thanks so much!

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I don’t know what it’s good for, but it looks super cool!

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