Originally Posted by: axemaster911You made a good point, and I am curious to know how many players see this as an easy to understand subject, and how many dont quite grasp the circle of fifths throughout many different keys, and with respect to sharps vs flats?
This could clear things up for many players stumped on the subject.

I don't think I'd say that it's easy to understand, but once you get started with theory it all starts to fall in to place. I personally have never used the actual 'circle of fifths' in visual form, I've memorised the order of sharps/flats so I can tell you the key signature of a given key - not very useful day to day though...

As dvenetian says, some keys are sharp, and some are flat - so to be 'correct' when spelling a scale you'd need to use the option that fits with the key. Most of the time, if you don't know if it's a sharp or flat key, the easiest thing to do is never to use the same letter twice in a row (except in a blues scale where it can't be avoided) - so it would be A B C# D, not A B Db D...

I guess you can sum it all up with 'It's easy when you know how'...