You Are Reading the First 6 FREE Chapters (470 pages)
Modulation in Music: Why Is It Such an Appealing Technique?
Modulation enables limitless harmonic and melodic variety while preserving unity. A successful modulation provides the brain with a new orientation of tones and chords, a leap into a musical parallel universe. Adventure! Danger! Thrills! Or ... at least musical novelty. Like taking the morning stagecoach to Wichita. Or Amarillo (that’s where a bounty hunter shot “Running Gun” Marty Robbins for neglecting to modulate).
Making the transition from the original tonality (key) to a new one usually takes from a couple of bars to a full four-bar phrase. Songwriters who know how to modulate will often change keys at a natural sectional boundary, such as the end of a verse, going into a bridge or chorus. At the end of the contrasting section, tonality usually moves back to the original key.
If the tonality does not move back to the original key, you probably have a shift modulation, not a recommended way of moving tonality (see below).