Transposing vs Modulation?

[AG Beats]

Man you can lead up with a few notes or whatever like u hear in that example I posted. Im no pro at It ive only done it in a beat once and it was an accident lol though I dont contribute anything to luck.

And then theres the example I posted. And just practice on the keys. Im proabably right around the same stage as you with the theory.


But yeah for real BC is normally on this stuff maybe hes away/busy or something. Either way he responds to PM's he loves helpin with the theory.

[TDOT]

Alright cool, what I tried last night and it sounded pretty good, but obviously basic.
But anyways it worked and lead to a smooth enough transition to the new key.
I played the V7 chord of the new key right before modulating to the new key. Sounded alright...

This is something I was to master or be really good at, at least understand the theory behind it.
A lot of melodys and progressions I hear are very repetitive and boring, I want to be able to switch moodd during a verse or for the chorus for example.

Yea I was gonna PM bandcoach but I wanted it to be a thread for everyone to see, no one seems to be checking the posts though,

[Pumpthrust]

Alright cool, what I tried last night and it sounded pretty good, but obviously basic.
But anyways it worked and lead to a smooth enough transition to the new key.
I played the V7 chord of the new key right before modulating to the new key. Sounded alright...

This is something I was to master or be really good at, at least understand the theory behind it.
A lot of melodys and progressions I hear are very repetitive and boring, I want to be able to switch moodd during a verse or for the chorus for example.

Yea I was gonna PM bandcoach but I wanted it to be a thread for everyone to see, no one seems to be checking the posts though,

You may wanna look into secondary functions. I suggest finding taking a theory course or finding a local instructor to give you some in-depth guidance.

[AG Beats]

yeah i was gonna say the dom 7 my boy always telling me thats what u use before modulating so yeah that explains why it sounded cool. It is basic tho.

[bandcoach]

this totally blew past my vision, that and a day out of the loop with a repeat of my stomach virus from the start of the year (doctor doesn't know either so we are going to do series of tests before acting).

So, first up kudos to Krushing as he got it on the head in his statements.

transpose means to move - it comes from the mathematical operation of the same name - you gotta remember that the guys who were writing up music theory were also first class mathematicians of their age. They studied both subjects and so were prone to using terms in both spheres for similar actions.

We live in a transposed musical world whether we like it or not.

If I want to write for the orchestra or a big band or a concert band I deal with transpositions, mainly in the woodwind and the brasswind. This is because certain lengths are better suited for building some instruments in and give a more consistent and predictable tone as a result.

Anyway I digress.

Modulation is the movement from one key to another.

Simply put it involves the use of harmonic change to arrive in the new key

So moving from C to Am or C to G or C to F is a case of picking a progression and then getting there. Sounds simple huh?

It actually is a whole lot simpler than you realise. If you have read any of my posts about secondary dominants you already understand the principle: prepare the new key centre by approaching it with it's dominant chord (chord V|v-I|i i.e. V-I|v-I|v-i|V-i). It works better if the chord is actually a dominant 7th chord (built as 5-7-2-4 in the new key).

Some examples

C to Am





Harmonically the movement is C: I-IV-V- a: V⁷-i-iv-V⁷-i

or C-F-G-E⁷-Am-Dm-E⁷-Am

When describing modulations either abrupt or transitioned, we show each key by using either Capitals for major keys and unicials (lower case) for minor keys

C to G





Harmonically: C: I-IV- G: V⁷-I

C-F-D7-G

C to F





Harmonically: C: I-V-IV-I F: IV-I-V⁷-I

C-G-F-C-Bb-F-C⁷-F

[AG Beats]

Even though you always seem to use terms that confuse me a little more, I think I have a basic understanding in my head. I just recently started revisiting the very very basics of theory, so I'm hoping to get a firmer understanding of all the technical stuff very soon.

[TDOT]

Coach is back!!!
Good looking on the response, and hope all is good with your virus.

I was able to get the drift on transposing vs modulation, tranposing is playing a tune in another key, modulation is modulating to another key in the same song.

I'm going to have to realy read this over to get a firm grip on it, it always takes me some time to take your information in.

I'm going to have to look up those other threads though on Secondary Dominants.

Any thing off the top that we should definetely know about Secondary Dominants chords with relation to transposing?

From I could take in so far though, is that you have your progression in the one key and you proceed to the V7 chord of the new key prior to making the change to the new key...Correct me if I'm wrong.

I got a little lost in this part:
"prepare the new key centre by approaching it with it's dominant chord (chord V|v-I|i i.e. V-I|v-I|v-i|V-i). It works better if the chord is actually a dominant 7th chord (built as 5-7-2-4 in the new key)"

I was also told that the "pivot" chordis another way to modulate and that a good way to do so is to find a strog chord that is present in both the old and new key, and use that as a means to lead into the new key.

Sometimes it also doesn't work, here's another example of something I tried yesterday.

I was trying to recreate Styles P's-Daddy get that cash ( or my own twist)

My Chords where in the Key of C and goes: vi-V-IV stretching the IV the rest of the 2 bars.

I was just an an exprience seeing what it would sound like to modulate to the same progression in the key of Am.

I did 8 bars in the key of C and then 8 bars in the key of Am.

So on my last 2 bars in the key of C, I played they:
vi-V-IV and the last 2 beat played V7 of Am and then proceeded to the 8 bars in the new key.

Is this correct?

[bandcoach]

I was able to get the drift on transposing vs modulation, transposing is playing a tune in another key, modulation is modulating to another key in the same song.

I'm going to have to really read this over to get a firm grip on it, it always takes me some time to take your information in.

I'm going to have to look up those other threads though on Secondary Dominants.

Any thing off the top that we should definitely know about Secondary Dominants chords with relation to transposing?

in terms of transposition there is no place for secondary dominants unless they already exist in the original key; i.e.they aren't used to facilitate a transposition

From I could take in so far though, is that you have your progression in the one key and you proceed to the V7 chord of the new key prior to making the change to the new key...Correct me if I'm wrong.

The normal route is via the V⁷ of the new key, which hopefully exists as a chord in the existing key with little modification needed. This is true of my 3rd example where we use C⁷ as the penultimate chord, requiring only that we flatten the B to create the dominant 7th chord. V⁷ followed by chord I or chord IV contains so much strong information about the new key (1-3-5-7-2-4 or -5-7-2-4-6-1) that we can be confident the new key is established.

I got a little lost in this part:
"prepare the new key centre by approaching it with it's dominant chord (chord V|v-I|i i.e. V-I|v-I|v-i|V-i). It works better if the chord is actually a dominant 7th chord (built as 5-7-2-4 in the new key)"

That is just me being ultra rigid in presenting all possible versions of the V-I cadence using both major and minor chords. The essence is that we need to hear V⁷ - I or V⁷ - i to feel confident about the modulation being successfully established.

I was also told that the "pivot" chord is another way to modulate and that a good way to do so is to find a strong chord that is present in both the old and new key, and use that as a means to lead into the new key.

Generally your pivot chord ends up being either the new I or new IV. E.G. modulating from C to G, you would move something like C-F-C-G-D-G and the function is

C: I-IV-I-V-V-of-V-V

C: I-IV-I G: I-II-I

The pivot is the G chord between the C and D chords so it is acting as both chord V in the old key and chord I in the new key.

Sometimes it also doesn't work, here's another example of something I tried yesterday.

I was trying to recreate Styles P's-Daddy get that cash ( or my own twist)

My Chords where in the Key of C and goes: vi-V-IV stretching the IV the rest of the 2 bars.

I was just an an experience seeing what it would sound like to modulate to the same progression in the key of Am.

I did 8 bars in the key of C and then 8 bars in the key of Am.

So on my last 2 bars in the key of C, I played they:
vi-V-IV and the last 2 beat played V7 of Am and then proceeded to the 8 bars in the new key.

Is this correct?

So I am going to write out the actual chords so that we can see what is happening:

12

34

1234

12

34

1234

12

34

1234

12

34

12

34

12

34

1234

12

34

1234

12

34

1234

12

34

1234

Am

G

F

Am

G

F

Am

G

F

Am

G

F

E7

F

E

Dm

F

E

Dm

F

E

Dm

F

E

Dm

C: vi

V

IV

vi

V

IV

vi

V

IV

vi

V

IV

a: V7

bVI

V

iv

bVI

V

iv

bVI

V

iv

bVI

V

iv

Which leads us to conclude that both F and E are pivot chords as the F exists in both progressions and the E⁷ is used to prepare the shift to the new key. It is interesting to note that in both examples there is no appearance of chord I|i.

This might suggest that the original progression is actually in Am and the modulation has been to Dm via a non key chord E⁷

[AG Beats]

I know this is like the caveman's way to say it, but am I wrong in saying to modulate from C to Am you could just play a I-IV-V-I in both keys? so

C-F-G-C

Am-Dm-Em-Am

Is that not modulation?

[bandcoach]

NO!!!!!!

It is imitation of a major sequence then played as the relative minor sequence.

if we are modulating to Am then we need to hear an E major chord at some point resolving to the A minor chord. If we hear an E⁷ then we are even more convinced that we have moved to A minor. This is because the two active tones in the E⁷ chord G^# and D pull us towards A and C

E7	Am
D	C
B	C
G#	A
E	A