Have you ever heard a piece of music that sounds like it was going along just fine and suddenly the whole thing sounded higher or lower? Or have you heard a piece that sounded just as happy as can be and then with the flip of a switch, it became sad?

This isn’t by accident. Composers employ a technique called modulation to accomplish that. So why do they do it, anyway? Sometimes there are real-world reasons such as a duet between two singers with very different ranges in their voice. By moving the whole piece up or down, two people with very different vocal ranges can sing it.

Often, though, there are much less technical reasons. Sometimes composers employ modulation simply to make a piece of music sound fresh in the listener’s ear. Music is largely based on repetition and repetition can get boring. Modulation makes the music sound fresh in the ears of the listener.

But you’re probably saying, “You’ve told me what modulation does but you haven’t told me what it is or how to do it.”

Here it is: Modulation is simply changing the key of a piece of music while the piece is being played. For example, maybe the key of the music was G Major but that key was getting a little stale in the ears of the listener so the composer changed it to A Major just to freshen it up.

Sometimes the composer changes the written key signature in the music while other times they don’t. If the modulation is a very temporary event, the written key signature often doesn’t change. If it is going to remain for a long period of time, the person playing the piece will often see a new key.

Now, you’re probably saying, “That’s really cool. How do I do it?” There are musicians who specialize in the study of music and how it’s put together. These people are called music theorists. They will tell you that modulation is often difficult. Not all keys can be used next to each other (the way not all colors can be combined on the same painting) There’s a complicated process in the world of music theorists.

There’s good news, though. There’s a whole other school that isn’t really a school at all. Musicians without all of that advanced knowledge figured out that sometimes modulation works by simply changing the key abruptly. They found that an abrupt change is sometimes pleasing to the ear. They also found that if they can get to the V Chord (five chord) which is the chord that is built on the fifth note of the key, that makes it easy to jump in to another key.

Those scholarly music theory types look over their glasses and say, “we call the V chord a pivot chord.” That’s just a fancy name for a chord that can be found in both keys.

By the way, if you’ve heard of transposition, modulation is different. Transposition is taking an entire piece of music and changing it to another key. Modulation is a change in key within a piece of music instead of the entire piece.

If you want to study modulation more, there are plenty of books written on the subject and those academic types are right, it is rather complicated sometimes but sometimes music is all about finding something that sounds good and doing it. Spend some time experimenting with modulation. We have a course on modulation and transposition at our catalog site - click the link below.
Copyright by Duane Shinn June 12, 2011. Do not use without permission.

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Every major scale has a relative minor scale - a “kissing cousin” — that shares the key signature of the major scale. That means that every major key has a relative minor key. To find the relative minor scale, locate the 6th degree of the major scale, and that becomes the root of the relative minor scale. And scales, of course, are the basis of keys. Watch this short video:

The full online catalog of courses on music theory and piano playing is at PlayPianoCatalog.com

When there are flats in the key signature, how do you locate the key of the song? It’s easy. Just count down 4 scale degrees and that is the key. Another way to say it is: the next to the last flat in the key signture IS the key. Watch this short video and you’ll understand:

If you have need of learning something about music in a short, specialized format, be sure to check out our Specialized DVD’s on just one focused topic at a time. Click on Short Specialized DVD’s

It’s always good now and then to go back to fundamentals, and today I want to think through the key of C with you and see what we can learn as we start with the C scale, or at least review. Click on the player below to hear this short podcast:

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The key of Bb major has two flats in the key signature — Bb and Eb. The primary chords are Bb, Eb, and F, and the main secondary chords are Cm, Dm and Gm. Watch this short video:

The key of F major is based on the major scale of F and has only one flat in the key signature — Bb. The primary chords are F, Bb, and C (or C7).

The key of Eb has 3 flats — Eb, Ab, and Bb. The primary chords are also Eb, Ab, and Bb, making it easy to remember. The secondary chords are Fm, Gm, and Cm, with a distant D dim. Watch this short video on the key of Eb: