The Art of Modulating a Piece of Music
1. What is a Modulation? 🤷🏻♂️
When writing music there is an endless amount of possibilities as to what you can write. Every chord choice and melody note tells us something new. Yet, when you come to learn about music theory, it can appear like there aren’t really that many options. There are 7 notes in a scale and there are 7 triads to choose from (sometimes with some extra notes added to those triads for some extra spice).
Let’s take a piece of music in the key of C major for example. The piece of music would be using a C major scale and would also be using triads from the C major scale:
C MAJOR SCALE
C D E F G A B
C MAJOR SCALE TRIADS:
CHORD 1: C E G
CHORD 2: D F A
CHORD 3: E G B
CHORD 4: F A C
CHORD 5: G B D
CHORD 6: A C E
CHORD 7: B D F
So how are there endless possibilities when the chord and note choices are so limited?! Well, that is why we have modulations!
A modulation is where we temporarily move to a different tonal centre (in simple terms: we change key and therefore change scale and chord options temporarily).
The difference between a “modulation” and a “key change” is actually often debated amongst musicians. However, a key change is a more fixed change where you would often see a new key signature within the music. Whereas a modulation is where we dip into another key as part of the narrative of the music, that might be for one chord, it might be for a full bar or it might be for more bars. In any of these situations though, the entire piece of music is not shifting into the new key…it’s exploring the landscape of that key before moving on. Many musicians might also consider a key change to be a form of modulation.
This means that a piece of music is no longer limited to 7 notes and 7 chords. We have the option to move to any number of different keys, scales and chords to tell the story that we want to tell. Each key, scale and chord telling us something completely different!
2. The Formula 🧪
So how do you actually modulate a piece of music? Can you just suddenly start using a different scale?
Well, technically…yes! However, it might sound a little odd without any reason for the music to suddenly start using chords that don’t make sense with what has come before. But, who knows, this might be exactly the effect that you want!
Having said that, there are some more conventional and strategic ways in which you can navigate to different scales and open up the options that you have.
PIVOT CHORDS
A pivot chord is a chord that is shared between two different scales. We can use these to seamlessly transition from one scale to another. For example, an E minor chord is chord 3 when using a C major scale but this chord also appears as chord 6 using the scale of G major. So if we wanted to transition from C major to G major, we could use an E minor chord to transition from one to the other.
CHROMATIC MOVEMENT
One of the most powerful ways to navigate music is to understand that our ears like to follow moving lines. If a melody and chords are jumping around, we have a hard time working out what is happening. But if chords and melodies move by step, we are able to hear the rise and fall of each melodic line. This means that we can get away with moving to chords that don’t belong to our current scale, if we move by step! For example, if I play a C major chord (C E G) followed by a C minor chord (C Eb G) within a piece of music, this would not only sound fine…but we would feel the music sink as the E drops to an Eb. You can use chromatic movement for 1, 2 are all of the notes in a chord to modulate to different keys!
CADENCES
I’ve actually done an entire Monday Music Tips Article on cadences which you can find here (LINK). However, a cadence is essentially the punctuation of music. While in sentences we use full stops (periods) and commas to create natural breaks within our phrases. In music, we use chords to create that same effect. A perfect cadence is the chords V-I (often chord V is chord V7 instead) and this feels like the end of a phrase and is similar to a full stop (period). Whereas an imperfect cadence is the chords I, ii or IV - V. This feels like a comma and like there needs to be a responding phrase afterwards. If we want to modulate, we can land in the new key by using a perfect cadence in the new key! For example if I wanted to move from the key of C major to the key of G major, I might use an A minor chord (this is a pivot chord as it is chord 6 in C major and chord 2 in G major), then I could play a D7 chord (chord V7 in G) followed by a G major chord (Chord 1 in G major) to land in the key of G major!
3. The Effect of Modulation 🛫
So why modulate in the first place? Is it not easier to just stick to the same scale and chords?
It’s definitely easier to stick to one scale, and reading a piece of music that only uses one scale is much easier to understand! But it can sound a little boring after a while…there is no surprise or excitement within the music. Most pieces of music (that aren’t pop music c.1990-present) will use modulations and borrowing chords from other scales to tell a much more complex story. This is actually most musicians complaint about modern pop music, there is no surprise and a lot of predictability!
Learning to read and understand music is largely made up of trying to identify what chords are being used and when a piece of music is modulating and where it is modulating to…because this tells us a lot about the intention of the music. If we play a piece of music that is in the key of C major and then we get a modulation to a new key, it feels like we are travelling to a new landscape away from home with new possibilities. The further away the key (the more different the key is in sharps/flats), the further we have travelled. There are many stories that can be told at home (using 1 key), but there are many more that can be told by travelling away from home, exploring and then returning with a new perspective!
Matthew Cawood
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