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.

Remember to check out all the piano courses at Play Piano Catalog!

Often you can give your songs a “lift” by modulating up a half-step from the key you are in. For example, if you are playing a song in the key of A major, try playing the last verse or chorus of the song in Bb. All you have to do is locate the V7 chord of the new key, and off you go.

If you need help in the area of modulation and/or transposition (they are similar but different) please go to Modulation and Transposition.

Do you know how to modulate from one key to another key? Do you get modulation confused with transposition? When you transpose a piece of music, you play it in a key which is different from the original key. Let’s say you are playing for a singer, and the song is too high for them. You can transpose (change keys) the song to a lower key. (For a complete course on modulation and transposition, click here.)

Modulation is different: It is the process of getting from one key to another. Listen to this podcast and you’ll catch on quickly:

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Transposition is changing the key of a piece of music, or changing the notes without changing their relationship. This is often done to make the piece of music easier to play or sing. It’s a common practice in bands that don’t perform their own material; the singer may wish to cover a song with vocals that are far out of his or her range. Transposition can correct that problem by shifting the key into a range that is comfortable for him or her. Transposition is also used with instruments. Some instruments (called transposing instruments) are not tuned to the same note; for instance, a Bb clarinet is tuned to a B flat and an alto clarinet to an E flat. Transposition of the sheet music for these instruments ensures that they won’t sound discordant when playing with the rest of the orchestra or band.
Transposition may be a simple concept, but it take lots of practice to achieve. The easiest sort of transposition — and technically it is not transposition at all, since it remains in the same key - is done by octave — simply moving the piece of music up or down eight steps. This sort of transposition may work for a male singer wishing to sing a female’s part, but it does little for transposing instruments or other areas of vocal work. In these cases, it’s best to use transposition by either scale degree or harmonic interval.
Transposition by scale degree uses the scale degrees of a piece of music to determine the relationship between the notes. Each note in a piece is assigned a scale degree (tonic, dominant, subdominant, mediant, submediant, etc.) and the same scale degrees are used for the new key. This type of transposition is potentially simple, as the relationship between the notes will always remain the same, regardless of the key.
Transposition by harmonic interval uses intervals as a guide for the transposition. By finding the interval between the dominant notes in the two keys, one can deduce the interval between the all the notes. If the difference between the notes is a major third, then transposition of all the notes will be done by a major third. This type of transposition is also potentially simple but calls for an added carefulness when dealing with accidentals that aren’t expressed in the key signature.
The very best way to transpose is to learn to think in more than one key. Most beginners start learning in the key of C, so after awhile they can think in that key — they know where the notes in that key are, and their fingers can get to them easily. Since every key a person can play in is mathematically the same as every other key, by learning to play in a 2nd key one can learn to think in that key, just as they did in the key of C.
Keys are like languages: if you don’t know Spanish, you certainly can’t think in Spanish, and when you learn to speak it, you will have to rack your brain for the right word for quite awhile before you begin to think in Spanish. Its the same in music — there are only 12 major keys in which you can play (in contract to languages, where there are hundreds) — so if you can eventually learn to think in all those 12 major keys, there is no key left that you couldn’t transpose in to.
Practically speaking, however, most people don’t need to know all 12 keys — just the keys in which most songs are written: C, F, G, D, A, Bb, and Eb. If you can learn the other six too, that’s fabulous, but you can certainly get by with just those 6 keys, or perhaps even less — and least C, F, and G — the “big 3” when it comes to keys.

To learn more about transposing, go to How To Transpose & Modulate
and How To Think In The Key