Modulation (music)
transition where a piece of music shifts between keys
In music, modulation is the change from one tonality (either a tonic or a mode, or both) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature (a key change). Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest. Treatment of a non-tonic chord as a temporary tonic, for less than a phrase, is considered tonicization.
Modulation is the essential part of the art. Without it there is little music, for a piece derives its true beauty not from the large number of fixed modes which it embraces but rather from the subtle fabric of its modulation.
Requirements
Harmonic: quasi-tonic, modulating dominant, pivot chord
Melodic: recognizable segment of the scale of the quasi-tonic or strategically placed leading-tone
Metric and rhythmic: quasi-tonic and modulating dominant on metrically accented beats, prominent pivot chord
The quasi-tonic is the tonic of the new key established by the modulation. The modulating dominant is the dominant of the quasi-tonic. The pivot chord precedes the modulating dominant, and is common to both the key of the immediately preceding tonic, and the new key of the quasi-tonic. For example, in a modulation to the dominant, ii/V–V/V–V could be a pivot chord, modulating dominant, and quasi-tonic.
“Modulation (music)” enters the record as transition where a piece of music shifts between keys. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Modulation, music and transition can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Modulation (music)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.