Circle of fives in layman's terms please?

Just deb its called the cycle of fifths an example is C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A#F C if you go backwards from the last C its the cycle of 4ths it all has to do with the major scale take C for example C D E F G A B C __ C is 1 D is the 2nd E is the 3rd F is the 4th G is the 5th so a cycle or (circle) of 5ths is 1 to 5 or C to G to the 5th of the 5th or G to D and so on ect,,,

Hi JustDeb,
I'm not going to disagree with any of the previous posts.  But I will offer my take on this topic.

Music Theory can seem very confusing and intimidating - but it all makes perfect sense once you learn all the archaic jargon.  People have been fascinated with music for many centuries, so the technical language of Music is ancient and foreign to our ears.

The Circle of Fifths is a useful tool for beginning to understand the relationship between different tones, the structure of chords, and also key signatures.  Here is a Wikipedia article that offers some insight:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
However, the article gets rather technical . . .

Here is a simpler take on the topic.  The Circle of Fifths is a shortcut for helping to describe lots of technical details.  It is a handy-dandy tool for transposing and for displaying the logic of the key signatures.

While the Wikipedia article itself might not be useful for you, check the links at the bottom to find some interesting sites.

Thanks to all for your replies!  I realized about an hour after I posted it was fifths, not fives..d'oh!

I've been playing music (violin, piano, melodic percussion) for a couple of decades now, and never really *needed* fifths explained, as on piano its dead easy to find the fifth (or third).  But being new to guitar, I've been trying to actually compose music, and thought that if I could get a "down and dirty" way to learn progressions, that it would make it easier.

As much as I've been fighting it, I think I may have to take some theory lessons on guitar...

Thank you all again!

-debs-

I learned it as cycle of fifths as well.  I thought I was just getting old.

I think the most important thing is it provides a quick reference for transposistion to any key and after you understand what it is the ease of playing in sharp or flat keys is no longer a mystery and jerome added some important imformation in including 2nds,3rds,ect...in the circle. understanding theory can reduce the time spent searching for the right chord to play in a given key and allow you to progress faster in your study of music and thus play better on your instrument what ever it is, also it aids in arranging vocal parts as well as for other instruments