Modulation Made Easy - Eight Quick Key Changes Explained

[@mrmaison4924]

I just did a song trying modulation at the end for the first time and now i see this video which will help me take it further. Thank you!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome - I'm glad to have been helpful!

[@tomschmidt4506]

I'm just a piano hobbyist here in the US. I'm KZbin trained with dreams of playing like yourself. You, Bill, are one of my top 5 KZbin instructors. I can't thank you enough for your video instruction. I have bought your books and I'm now going to make a $$ contribution to you. Many thanks, Merry Christmas and I hope you're able to book gigs very soon.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much indeed for both the kind words and the Patreon support (and for buying the books) Tom! I'll drop you a message on Patreon shortly, but in the meantime, a very Merry Christmas to you too!

[@iPodcriming]

🎉

[@MrMikomi]

Very nice trick with the major to parallel minor modulation. I had never considered that it's asymmetric but yes you're right, it is. Thanks!

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much!

[@arthouston7361]

I enjoyed taking this in, even though I am not yet concerned with moving from one song to the next!!!!

[@BillHilton]

Glad you liked it, Art!

[@quaternion-pi]

Gosh, why didn't I learn this after 7 years of classical piano lessons? Thanks for your many excellent tutorials.

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@krishsmusic6877]

Oh now you going to become best music director 😂😂😂

[@rebanelson607]

Excellent lesson - clear, thorough and beautiful!

[@BillHilton]

Thank you!

[@donlessnau3983]

This guy is so good. Really exceptional. Well done. Thanks Bill.

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Don - thanks very much indeed!

[@MuradGakhramanov]

Thank you Mr. Bill. Literally, one of the best piano teachers on youtube. You taught me a lot of techniques with creating relation between feelings and chords. Thank you very much!

[@BillHilton]

Great to hear - you're very welcome!

[@xhead75]

Fantastic lesson! Filled in some blanks for me, thanks!

[@patriciaann6380]

Very interesting tutorial, thanks Bill .

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Patricia!

[@HenrikRudi]

I don't comment very often on videos like this, but I just wanted to say you're one the best instructors I've found for learning music theory and general skills and techniques on the piano (and I've been learning this stuff for a while). Thank you!

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Well said, and it's all true. And I love his Texas accent.

[@shapeshifta3431]

great! thanks for this one Bill

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@wongjin8382]

Hi teacher, I'd purposely sign in and subscribe your channel which i don't usually do but you really inspiring! It's so much fun and exciting along with your videos. I feel you're my composing teacher :P TQ Bill Teacher

[@BillHilton]

I'm really glad it's helping - let me know if you ever have any questions!

[@kevinmedvedocky165]

Very interesting. I realized that you can modulate f min when you transform the gminor 7 wich is diatonic in the key bflat to a gmin7 flat 5 wich is the 2 in the key of fminor and the goes to the C7 wich is the 5 and then to F minor.

[@thejazzpiano2074]

I think in 10 years of KZbin I've never seen your face before - Hello, Bill!

[@BillHilton]

And hello to you too!

[@unclemick-synths]

Great explanation. Thanks!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome Mick!

[@jorgeparr3002]

Fabulous 👌 THANK YOU SIR!!!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Jorge!

[@athinaios-1959]

Thank you !

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@i3gallery]

"Show you some quick and dirty ways of modulating"....If people didn't know any better, it sounds rather like we're being invited in to the backroom of a "Blue Shop" haha. Still, the video is really great in showing a nice way to modulate between keys "on the fly". When you mentioned Chromatic Mediants, I immediately thought you were going to whip out Coltrane's magic circle, saying that, it's weird that no one has built a more "thorough" version of the circle of fifths and forths in recent years to show modal relationships, movements between the parallel minor and major keys alongside a "harmonic map". I am currently in the process of building one and wondered if you'd be interested in critiquing it when it's done? I noticed someone was commenting about "keyboard rattling", I'll take a punt and assume that you are playing through an aux out so a mic catches you and the piano? If so, if I am not mistaken you've got the Nord Piano 4? If I am right, I think that has a USB connection so you can hook up midi-over-USB and play through a DAW and use the mic exclusively for your voice over. Sure you could use the midi output but depends if you have a midi-in interface, midi-over-USB is definitely more expedient. All in all, the key action noise should pretty much be greatly reduced although to be honest it doesn't bother me as you are teaching theory and technique as opposed to sharing a performance piece. Still, envious that you have a fully weighted keyboard, I'm still using a semi-weighted keyboard, the old reliable Keystation 61. Great content again, thanks for sharing!

[@rastapancake9428]

Thank you

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@bren519]

Eeeeexcellent video sir.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Brennan!

[@gregfam6250]

I missed out on the bundle savings because I got each separately. I regret NOTHING.

[@BillHilton]

I don't know whether to be 😢 or 😃 for you, Greg!

[@Juan_Teppa]

Hi Bill! Hope you can read this. Got a question about 2 5 1 and 4 5 1 modulation techniques, here it goes, hope you can help me: Let's say my tonal center is F on a F Lydian based scale progression (F, G, Em) and I'd like to change keys to a C Lydian based progression. Could that 2 5 1 or 4 5 1 modulation technique be applied to change keys from F to C Lydian using D, G,C (2 5 1) and/or F#dim, G, C (4 5 1) respectively? Thanks in advance! :)

[@BillHilton]

Short answer: yes, it should work, as G is the 5 chord for C Lydian in the same way it is for regular C major. BUT you would want to be careful about how you used extensions (so you can probably see how a G7 chord could be awkward (or not) in the context of a key change from F Lydian, in which it's diatonic, to C Lydian, to which it's not) and you'd also want to consider voice leading: so, probably the most effective way to do it would be to use a G chord in second inversion - ie, with a B, the leading tone of C-based scales at the top - rather than a G7. Basically, it would take a little bit more playing around to find a satisfactory solution than would be the case with a simple F major-C major transition, but the basic principles would still be the same. Things are kind of working in your favour anyway, because F Lydian's natural instabilility will take it towards C-based keys, particularly C major. Does that help?

[@Juan_Teppa]

@@BillHilton Billllll!!!! I've learned tons of theory thru you extensive shared musical wisdom!! Thank you for taking the time to reply to my message! Happy Holidays and hoping your userbase keeps growing on 2021! Cheers!!

[@BillHilton]

@@Juan_Teppa You're welcome, Juan - hope you're having a good break too, and be sure to give me a shout in the New Year and let me know how you're getting on!

[@CeeGusts_49Waves]

Thanks for the instructions for modulations to the fifth above B flat. But what if you are in D flat, and only wish to modulate to E flat? Then what would be the most melodic sequence to modulate to the next diatonic tone?

[@BillHilton]

Evening! Apologies for the delayed reply on this one. I'd say you have a couple of options: first, for modulations by a tone (or semitone) you can simply jump, and it can sound find (see, e.g., about a million Disney songs....). If that's too rough and ready for you, then I'd say the first step is to look at the dominant chord of your target key. Your target is Eb, which has Bb as its V. Bb doesn't exist in the key of Db (your original key), but Bbm does. So one approach might be to swap out a Bbm chord where it might normally appear and replace it with a Bb or Bb7. Something like: Db (home tonic chord) -- Bbm (home vi chord) -- Bb7 (target V7 chord) - Eb (target tonic). Or Ab (home V chord) - Bb7/Ab (target V chord) - Eb. Those are just a couple of ways that could work. It's REALLY worth playing around with the voicing and inversion of the chords, because they can make a big difference to the smoothness of the modulation (essentially what I'm talking about here is good "voice leading", which is worth digging into if you're really interested in modulation). Does that help?

[@CeeGusts_49Waves]

@@BillHilton Thanks Sooo much, for the choices of methods of progression to the next key. YES, your instructions are clear, after I read them two or three times. In the meantime, while I was waiting for your reply, I came across a web site that was covering the , ii, V, Vll technique. I have not tried it yet, but plan to play around with that strategy as well as your suggestions tonight! Again, Thanks for taking the time to respond to my inquiry!👌😊

[@BillHilton]

@@CeeGusts_49Waves You’re welcome - let me know how you get on!

[@CeeGusts_49Waves]

@@BillHilton Hello, Bill! UP DATES: Now that I have given them a try, I am finding that the ii/m7, V7, I … is the chord progression that sounds good to my ears! It seems that all depends on the genre of music one prefers to listen to. I am not extensively trained in Chord Progressions and Inversions, so this is a journey down the winding roads for me! Thank you sooo much for your prompt replies!!

[@BillHilton]

You’re welcome - that’s good to hear! Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with 👍

[@njm20music]

the Eb and Ab are the chromatic mediant chords or have I miss understood the Chromatic mediants

[@prasadchavan9725]

Sir please make a video on how to get relative and perfect pitch perfect for adults

[@BillHilton]

I'm planning a general video on aural skills for the new year, Prasad, so that should help with relative pitch stuff. Perfect pitch is a different matter - some people claim to have "learned" it, but my experience is in line with the common understanding that it's something you either have or don't have (and I definitely don't have it!)

[@AmeeliaK]

In practice, I find that the relative pitch within the key is in most cases all I need. Have a look at the Alain Benbassat Method, there's a mobile app for Android called Functional Ear Trainer. I was surprised how fast I learned to recognise diatonic keys.

[@unclemick-synths]

@@prasadchavan9725 people with perfect pitch don't have to guess. The rest of us have to guess.

[@BethanyLowe8773]

I think pitch memory can be learned - I did it myself. Everyone can remember a pitch for 5 seconds, but can you remember it for an hour? Generally one can if you are thinking about / 'hearing' music internally all the time, so being obsessed helps, but so does carrying a tuning fork or phone app and 'testing' yourself every so often. I don't think it's witchcraft or genetic etc and there is research to show that everyone has it to some extent if they use it.

[@deogratiaskatinda9232]

Thank you so much for your rich expositions. Can I get your number for more personal assistance?

[@J.S.4ever]

Please someone explain this c7 chord cause it looks like an inversion instead. I’m still learning, but I thought a c7 would include a B somewhere? But I’m seeing G, C, E.

[@BillHilton]

A C7 would normally be C-E-G-Bb, Stephanie (if it was a B natural the chord would be Cmaj7). Which point in the video are you looking at?

[@EvgeniyBerlin]

Bill, you make absolutely great videos, but the keyboard rattling is incredibly annoying for me. Probably you can position the microphone closer to your mouth and make a piano sound louder.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks for the kind words, Evgeniy! The keyboard noise has been something I've wrestled with for a few years. It comes down to a couple of things: first, since my Nord is a stage piano, it's engineered for robustness rather than quietness, but it's so great I want to keep using it. Second, I can get rid of most of the keyboard noise by using a headset mic, but the resulting sound is very unnatural and, it seems to me, hard to listen to for a long time. So what I've tried to do is reduce the keyboard noise as much as I can by using directional mic'ing. It's a lot better than it used to be, but apologies that it's still not perfect!

[@tv-us2kb]

Good

[@MrBrechtD]

This part should be called transition chords or something. Anyway, what are the little "fillers" called then? the ones usually done with the right hand

[@BillHilton]

Good question: "passing chords" is a term that often gets used (like "passing notes").

[@MrBrechtD]

@@BillHilton Thanks for answering :)

[@gopalkrishnan5042]

What's the piano model name?

[@BillHilton]

It's a Nord Piano 2, from 2012, Gopal :)

[@gopalkrishnan5042]

@@BillHilton ok thanks

[@esteemedyams]

I feel like this is a very clear and concise explanation but I still don't get it 😅

[@AmeeliaK]

Every single Wikipedia article about music theory looks scary and unnecessary complicated 😅

[@BillHilton]

I'm saying NOTHING (but yes, you're right...)

[@unclemick-synths]

It's not just Wikipedia. Too often theory is detached from music or is written for theory geeks rather than musicians! 😀

[@jackbussy3133]

Got your books, they're great !!

[@BillHilton]

Thanks for getting them, Jack, and glad to hear you like them!