The Harmonious Blacksmith: A Music Theory Exploration

Ep. 15 : Key_Changes_and_Modulation

• Kevin Patrick Fleming • Season 2 • Episode 15

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In this episode of The Harmonious Blacksmith, we dive deep into key changes and modulation—two fundamental concepts that every musician, music theorist, and music student should understand. Whether you're a guitarist, pianist, or composer, mastering key changes can elevate your compositions and performances. We'll explore different types of modulation, such as pivot chord modulation, direct modulation, and common tone modulation, and how they can transform a piece of music.

Throughout this episode, we’ll break down how modulation affects the overall harmony and emotional impact of music, giving you the tools to use key changes creatively in your own work. Whether you're studying music theory or are a seasoned musician, this episode will provide valuable insights into the structure of music, musical transitions, and how modulation can enhance your musical expression.

Perfect for music students, musicians, music theorists, and guitarists alike, this episode will help you improve your understanding of music theory, boost your analytical skills, and inspire new approaches to composition. Tune in and take your music theory knowledge to the next level!

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UNKNOWN:

you

SPEAKER_01:

Chill way to start our program today. That was Gymnopédie No. 1 by French composer Eric Satie. Welcome back to The Harmonious Blacksmith, a podcast on music theory exploration. This is episode 15 in season 2, and I am your host, Kevin Patrick Fleming. Oh, there they are. There they are. Thank you. Thank you. Ah, thank you. I appreciate all your fake applause. Thank you so much. Today, we have a very special episode about key changes and modulation. And as always, I will give you the reminder that this is a linear and comprehensive podcast, meaning that step one builds to step two and then to step three and so on. So if you are coming into my podcast right now for the first time, first of all, welcome. We are very glad you're here, but you may want to go back to the very beginning of season one and episode one, listen to everything and come on back. back when you're ready. Or if you're already a bit experienced in theory, you may be able to follow along just fine. So again, welcome. The last couple of episodes, we've been working on improvisation, which really was a combination of all the things that we've been learning previously in season one and the beginning of season two. But I'm moving on to a newer concept today about keys and modulation, how they're related how they can be used together, what the differences between them are, and what the comparisons are in general. Let's start by doing a little review about what a key is. And if you want to, you can refer back to episode 10 of my podcast where I talk about circle of fifths and keys if you would like to go review in a more thorough manner. But let's go ahead and redefine it. So what is a key? A key is a set of pitches that come from a scale pattern that create the melodies, harmonies, triads, chords, and chord progressions that all work together to create a musical narrative. So take the key of G major, for example, and you know it's whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half by now sounds like this. And then your chords would be G, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F sharp diminished, and then back to G. And that is a key. So when you have melodies and harmonies working together along with those chords that are based from the triads, as you remember from the skipping method in season one, put all that together and you have a key. So then what exactly is a key change? A key change is when you move from one set of pitches or to another set of pitches after that. So associate the word key with locked in, right? Because we know keys in life, they lock and unlock different locks. The wordplay is helpful for remembering the idea that when you are in a key, the key locks you into a key. So when I said G major, it'd be G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, And we are locked into that until we do move to a key change. So for an example, key change might go to D as in dog, D major. And that would be D, E, F sharp, G, A, B, C sharp, D. So now you have two sharps instead of previously having one.

SPEAKER_00:

But wait a second, Kevin. Are you telling me that only one note changing can be an entire key change?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, that's actually exactly what I'm telling you. Because when you go from G-A-B-C-D-E-F-sharp-G to D-E-F-sharp-G-A-B-C-sharp-D, you are actually only changing one pitch. But that's not the only thing that's changing. And we need to learn a new term in order to understand the next thing, which is a tonal center. A tonal center is a root or home base pitch. pitch or chord from which everything else revolves around, meaning all the other pitches and chords in the key. I like to use the metaphor of a solar system, for example. So take the sun. The sun would represent a tonal center, and all the planets that revolve around it represent all the other pitches and chords that work together to create a particular So, for example, when we're in G major, the pitch G is the tonal center. It is the home base. It is the place that we are starting and the place that we are finishing. So, the musical journey starts and ends on G. It could be a pitch. It could be a chord. And if you remember from previous episodes, the idea of musical tension, the idea that a chord progression has a home base is a key. It starts there. It elevates with musical tension to go to other places, creates this sort of roller coaster ride of a sound, and then eventually makes its way back home where you get sort of a musical tension and release kind of feel. And you are back at home base where tension is released and the pitch feels tranquil and at ease. Wow. Okay, so that was definitely a lot of stuff to digest at once. But let me go ahead and give you a few audio examples. All right, so I'm headed back to the key of G, which sounds like this. And G would be the home base or tonal center in the key of G. Now, just to skip ahead a little bit, I'll give you a 1-4-5 progression. And if you remember in G, that's going to be G, C, and D, which would sound like this. And now you can hear that musical tension and release. So starting at G... Then we elevate to the IV chord, which gives us some tension, rise in tension. Then we get even more, and this time I'm gonna go to a V7 chord, by the way, to make the tension even greater, and your V7 sounds like this. And then back to home base would sound like this. Ah, and then you hear that release. And again, that is a tonal center. The center and pitch, the center chord on which everything else revolves, all the musical tension builds and releases based on that tonal center. So just to do it in one other key as an example, I gave you D as in dog, which would sound like this.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, do you remember what the I, IV, V, and D major are? They are D, G, and A, or A7, which gives the tension. Ah, then it releases back to D. So notice I was able to get that tension and release effect, whether I was in the key of G or in the key of D. So I did essentially just give you your first audio example of a key change, but let me give it to you back to back with just the chords. I'm gonna start back in G again. And now D. Now, did your ear hear the tonal center change? Did you hear that G was tranquil in the first one and then D was tranquil in the second one? So you should be able to hear that the tonal center moves from G to D. And how is that really accomplished? It can only be accomplished with surrounding chords and surrounding musical tension that therefore creates that tonal center. So now I'm going to demonstrate a basic key change going from G major to D major using really just a generic tune. And I apologize for my singing ahead of time, but I am going to use it for example's sake. So key of G, I'm using 1, 4, and 5. 1, 4, 5,

SPEAKER_02:

1.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's my generic tune. Now, what if I just take that same tune and put it to a D major chord progression? It's the same exact tune. It's just moved to a different level. So I could take that even farther and do one more. Now I'm in the key of C. Same thing. Again, sorry for the singing. Okay. But the whole point of that is just to show you I'm just taking one pitch on each one of those chords, singing a generic tune, and then changing the key. And so I went from G major to D major to C major on the same exact tune using 1, 4, and 5. All of those are, in fact, a key change. And that brings up yet another new term, which is called... transposition. Transposition is the act of taking a piece of music and taking every bit of it and moving it to another key. So that's literally what I just did from G to D to C. I took the 1-4-5 progressions, I took the same three notes that I was singing, and I just moved them to a higher or lower level to match the new set of pitches in the new key. And that is in fact what we call transposition. All right, so we established what a key is. We also established what a key change is. And now to get to the other main term of this episode, which is called modulation. So what is modulation? So modulation is the shift of the musical tonal center. It could either be permanent or it could Now that might seem like kind of a vague and mysterious definition, but we're definitely going to go through some audio examples. So just to give you a differential, when we do a key change, you don't necessarily need subtle means or mechanics to go from one key to the next. Refer to the previous example I gave you where I went from G to D to C. I didn't use any technique or chord progression or melodic sequence like you're going to hear here pretty soon for modulation. I didn't use any technique. I just simply transported from one key to the next, and that is a key change. Here is your first example of a modulation technique, and I'm going to kind of talk you through it. So I'm starting in G major. One And it brings me back to one, right? So one is my home base. G is my home base. But if I use one little technique of altering a chord, which we're going to talk about afterward, I can use a modulation technique and subtly change keys to D. So now listen. One,

SPEAKER_02:

four, five,

SPEAKER_01:

one. G, C, now an A chord. So I made it all the way to the key of D major now. Did you hear me change from the key of G major to D major? You probably didn't. And that's because it is a subtle technique. It is something composers and songwriters use to have a nice blended and subtle change of the tonal center. So now let me explain this powerful technique that is used in music. So basically, we establish the 1, 4, 5, and G as G, C, and D, right? But when I did another pass around, I went from G to C. Then I played this A major chord. Now, I put an exclamation point there in my mind. Why? Number one, A major does not exist in the key of G. So this chord is not in the key I'm playing in. So think about the key of G major for a second. Use your own knowledge that you've learned so far and think, chord has the root of A in the key of G major. What kind of chord is it? Did you figure it out? It would actually be an A minor. Because remember, in a major key, the two chord is minor. So it would be an A minor, which is spelled A, C, and E. Okay. So all I did to create this modulation mechanic that I'm using subtly is I sharped the C natural in the A minor. I sharped it a half step to a C sharp. And we literally go from an A minor chord to an A major chord. with just one half step on one pitch. The other two pitches stayed the same. So again, the A minor as a two chord in G would be A, C, and E. A,

SPEAKER_02:

C,

SPEAKER_01:

E. An A major chord would be A, C sharp in E. So we went from A, C, E to A, C sharp, E. A, C, E. So you can tell they're different, but subtle, right? One's minor, one's major. We know those sound vastly different. But when you really get down to it, they're only one pitch different, and that pitch is only altered by a half step. This gives us the mechanic to create that subtlety that I'm describing with modulation. So again, I'm going to back up to my example. G major, 1, 4, 5, 1. And then the second pass One, four. But instead of going to a minor two chord, I go to a major two chord, which then goes to a D chord, which was the five and G. But now the A major is starting to bend the key towards D major. Why? Because we added a C sharp now. How many sharps does the key of G major have? It has one, and it's an F. D major has two sharps, and they are F and C. So I'm just altering the C natural that was in the key of G. Now it's a C sharp, and I'm using that pitch to subtly move our ear to the new tonal center of D. So you can tell with modulation, it is a little more subtle, a little more blended, not as obvious, and basically a little more clever, in my opinion, on how you go from one key to another and help your listener re-establish a new tonal center in their ear and be able to hear that. So modulation is allowing composers to manipulate how their listeners hear the music that comes in the previous key and in the following key. And music creators are not just picking random keys to connect together using modulation. Generally speaking, they're going to use keys that connect easily, and that is one of our new terms today, and it's called closely related keys. A closely related key is a key that has either just one, maybe two pitches different from the other key. So the two keys really share the majority of pitches as the same, minus one or two, which gives you a chance to subtly move from one to the other with smoothness and ease. So G major has one sharp, and it's F, and D major has two sharps, and they are F and C, and therefore those two keys are closely related. I urge you to pull up an image of the circle of fifths right now, or to even go back to episode 10 of the circle of fifths and study it, because closely related keys are going to be right next to each other on the circle of fifths. So the circle of fifths will continue to be a powerful tool, but it is absolutely a powerful tool when we're talking about key changes, when we're talking about modulation, when we're talking about closely related keys and how we can change from one key to the other using modulation techniques. So now here's a question. What is another closely related key to G major on the circle of fifths? When we went to the right, we got D major. What if you just go one key to the left? Yep, and it's C major. And remember, C major has zero sharps and flats. And again, G major has one. So they share every single pitch except for the F. C major has F natural, and G major has F sharp. But the other six pitches are exactly the same, and therefore they are, in fact, closely related keys. There are different types of modulation techniques, and I'm going to get into those on the next episode, actually, but now that you understand basically what modulation is, I want to reiterate my definition of key changing, okay, now that you understand modulation. Remember that a key change is a shift of tonal center and a shift to a new set of pitches, but it doesn't necessarily mean use a modulation technique. Sometimes it's just a transposition, as we discussed earlier. And I will also let you know that modulation doesn't always mean we're changing keys. Sometimes modulation techniques are used just to go to somewhere temporarily to kind of bend the ear or bend the key a little bit and then come back to the key you were already in. So it doesn't really actually change keys. So So, for example, the wildly popular song Freebird by Leonard Skinner is a great example of some modulation that doesn't turn into a key change. I will show you. Freebird is generally in the key of G major, and it starts on a I chord. Then it goes to a V chord, which is D. Then it goes to a VI chord, which is E minor. Plays that twice. But then instead of going to an expected chord in the key of G, it actually goes to an F major. your next. which is an unexpected chord because, as we know, the key of G has an F sharp in it, not an F natural. So now we're naturaling out the F in G, which is like we're all of a sudden in C major with no sharps and no flats. And consequently, the song does go from that F chord to a C chord, but only temporarily because it goes right back to a D major chord, which has an F sharp in it again, and it turns us right back around to G. So again, we went G, which is 1, D is 5, E minor is 6, twice. Then we get an F major chord that doesn't belong, a bit of a modulation, and then we get a C chord after that. which is like we're modulating to C, but only temporarily. We're not key changing here. We're only modulating, and then it goes right back to D, which has the F sharp in it again from previous, and brings us back to G. I know that's a lot, but go back and listen to it a few times if you need to. And to give you one last example to drive the differences and similarities of modulation and key changing home would be a direct key change from a minor key to its parallel major. Do y'all remember parallel keys from previous episodes? Remember that a parallel key means it has the same root note, but one's major and the other's minor. So let me Let me give you an example. I could be in the key of A minor. And the parallel major would be A major. They have the same exact root note, it's just that one is a minor key with a certain set of chords, and the other is a major key with a certain set of chords. And they are completely different keys. So a I-IV-V in A minor would be A minor, D minor, E minor, And back to A minor. So you might hear a song. But what if at some point, all of a sudden, that A minor turned into A major. Then I could do a one, four, five in A major. back to one in A major, and then I could move eventually right back to A minor again. So in this case, there is no modulation technique, but we are in fact making a key change. We are changing from A minor to A major and back to A minor again, but we didn't use any modulation techniques. We simply used the commonality that they both share the same exact tonal center, the same exact root note. So now we have some basic examples of key changes and some basic examples of modulations and how the two are related and how they're sometimes used together and how also sometimes they are completely separate. So now it's time for breakdown. Today we talked all about key changes and modulation. We learned that a key change is going from a certain set of pitches based on a scale pattern to another set of pitches, that it re-establishes different melodies, harmonies, triads, chords, and chord progressions. We learned that modulation is a technique that is used in a subtle and clever way to sometimes create a key change and other times to create a temporary bend in the key, just to make things colorful and interesting. I reminded you what parallel keys were, keys that have the same tonic note, but one is major, the other is minor. We learned what closely related keys are and how that relates to the circle of fifths. Keys that have an overwhelming amount of the same pitches but might have one or two that are different. These are closely related keys and they are close to each other on the circle of fifths. We also learned what transposition is, the idea of taking a piece of music and all its elements and just moving it to a different range or a different key, higher or lower. Coming up on episode 16, we will go through more examples of key changes in modulation. I will get more specific with those mechanics and techniques. And that will be when we continue this music theory exploration with all of you. Have a wonderful music-filled week. Until next time.