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Modified: Aug 3 2010 - Scarborough Unfair
An article on how Paul Simon stole Martin Carthy's arrangement of the English folk song "Scarborough Fair"
Modified: Jun 12 2009 - Blues Guitar - 8-bar blues in A – Come Back Baby
Part of a series of lessons on blues guitar. The series goes from basic blues to intermediate/advanced playing.
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Key To The Highway - 8-bar blues in A, based on the playing of Big Bill Broonzy.
Modified: Mar 17 2009
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Music Theory for Guitar - Introduction to modulation |
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| Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation | Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation to subdominant |
Modulation - introduction
Modulation mean changing to another key. In classical music, it is common to take the music through numerous keys, before returning to the home key. You go out on a journey, and then come home. Listeners expect to come home, sooner or later. In a symphony that might take more than an hour to play, you can stay in other keys for a while, before returning. In a 3 minute pop-song with the verse played 4 times, you don't have to be away from home for a long time. There you might go to another key for just one bar, before returning. Or you might modulate to another key in the bridge part, and return to the home key in the verse.
Often the word transition is used in addition to modulation. When you just jump to another key, as you can often hear in some pop and country music where they repeat the melody a half note higher, it is transition. Modulation is a bit more sophisticated, where you work your way to the next key through some harmonic development. In these lessons, I will not distinguish between the two. I call every change of key a modulation.
In pop, rock and jazz, it is not common to use the word modulation too often. One often refer to chord changes or chord progressions, without discussing, or maybe not realizing that the music move from one key to another.
We can modulate to close keys or to more remote keys. The closest keys are the neighboring keys in the circle of fifth, the relative major or minor and from major to minor or vice versa with the same root. In this series we will only cover modulation to close keys.
To explain some basic aspects of modulation, we once again have to go back to the tritone and the V7-I cadence. You will find all diatonic intervals but one in at least two major scales. But the tritone F-B or the inverted version B-F is unique to C-major. You will not find it in any other major key. Go one step clockwise around the circle of fifths, and the F is sharpened to F#. Go one step counterclockwise, and the B is flattened to Bb. There is also only one tritone in a major scale, if we hold the inverted B-F as the same as F-B.
You do find the enharmonic equivalents of the tritone F-B, E#-B in F# major and Fb-Cb in Gb-major. But these are very remote keys if our home is C-major - as far as you can get on an equal tempered instrument like the guitar. We will come back to this.
The tonal centre of a major key is the tonic triad - the C-major triad in C-major. But this triad is not unique to C-major. C-major is also the dominant V-chord of F-major and the subdominant IV-chord or G-major. So the C-major triad is not enough to define the key of C-major. We need the unique tritone F-B and the C-major triad. To establish the new key, we have to obliterate the tritone of the key we are leaving, and establish the tritone of the new key, and to stabilize the key with the new tonic triad. If we modulate to a close key, the dominant, the subdominant or to their relative minors, the tonic triad is still a diatonic triad in the new key, but it will have another function in the new harmonic context.
A few words about notation
When analyzing the modulations, the notation become a bit complicated. If the home key, or the main key, is C-major, the chords C-G-C may be referred to as I-V-I. But when we modulate to G-major, the same chords become IV-I-IV in the new key. It is necessary to understand the functions of the chords related to the different keys to understand the modulation. But whenever we are writing the chords in a progression meant to be played and not to be analyzed, the chords will be written in relation to the home key only. If the home key is C-major, the chord D7 will then be referred to as a II7 chord, even though we may be in the key of G-major at the moment, where the chord function as a V7 chord in the temporary key.
| Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation |  | Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation to subdominant | |
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| Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation | Music Theory for Guitar - Modulation to subdominant |