Michael Jackson had a purpose there. It was to emphasize the word CHANGE, by actually changing the feeling of the song. Art is about elevating simple concepts to higher levels.
@@Jcremo Yes, it is literally what happens with anything once it becomes a commodity in the hands of the corporations. Nowadays its all about massproduction and sales.
@@SleepBeforeYouThink - This is my question, too. Not that I am wild about all of the choices to do so, but I seriously am trying to understand why they're no longer 'in'. Just wait - They'll be back.
I just saw an interview with Sting where he was saying that the bridge in a song is where the therapy happens. For example, you're sad about losing a lover but in the bridge you reconsider your previous emotion and that maybe things will be better after all. The loss of complexity in modern music is such a shame.
I also saw this but I have long been disappointed with current mainstream music. I suspect the voices are not as good. And there is less creativity musically. But I'm old so....
i like that idea. maybe catharsis is the word, at least that's the thing that was supposed to happen in Therapy... maybe the loss of complexity stems from people not really feeling that shift in the same way, or perhaps not looking for the kind of lift that a key change adds to the song. for me, it can seem artificial, as if the musician were forcing the emotion into the song itself by manipulating the presentation. i mean that's what artists do. but, aren't people also looking for a particular mood or feeling in the music they listen to; A particular artist or genre providing reliable content? more of a pill than a therapy session?
Major to minor or minor to major on the same note is always a good study of contrasts. "Time In A Bottle" by Jim Croce is a classic example: D minor verses, D major chorus. The tone of the song changes tremendously between the two. By the way, "I'm Still Standing" is my favorite Elton John song of all, for that reason.
@@DeflatingAtheism I've read that Jon Bon Jovi eventually (even before his recent medical voice issues) stopped singing that line because his voice couldn't handle it anymore. He lets the audience sing it alone now.
Burke Long I’m trying to learn guitar but couldn’t agree more. Watching these channels on youtube has taught me to appreciate music in totally new ways 🤘☹️🖤
It looks as if key changes started happening just as The Beatles got going. Maybe The Beatles used key changes and lots of musicians realised that a key change was a good idea.
@@simonmultiverse6349 Key changes pre-date the Beatles by several centuries in Western Music. There are numerous Elvis Presley songs with key changes. Frank Sinatra "New York New York" has many of them.
A key change I've been obsessed with lately is the chorus on "Come on Eileen". Such a great sudden change that really makes the song on top of the hooks. Great video Rick!
That’s an example of a key change compensating for the fact that the song writing has nowhere to go and the song would be too short or too repetitive without it. It’s a trick. Nothing more.
You sir, are the music theory professor I always wished I had. 30 years ago I dropped a music theory course because the prof made this stuff as exciting as watching mold grow. Your content makes me grieve that decision. So beautiful. I’m trying to save so that I can support your channel. Please keep going.
This discussion of lack of key changes is bullshit. Don't listen to the new pop crap. Listen to Dream Theater. Make some new stuff. Don't listen to the radio.
@@Saerdna833 I get what you are saying, but these old songs were actual hits and played on the radio. They weren't underground, practically everybody knew these great songs.
Same here. My music teacher at school was a right old snob, all the posh kids who were having instrument lessons were "it" and the rest of us proles rhymed with that. Pretty much put me off for life.
I saw an interview with Sting on how he wrote Every Breath You Take, which is easily the biggest hit of his entire career. He said once he finished composing it, working out all the details on paper, he went to his piano to play it and when he was finished he said he knew immediately he had a number one hit. I surmise when he hit that bridge, ("since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace"), that goes up, he almost couldn't control his giddiness....... because that made that song. Yes it's got a great hook, a great beat, great lyrics, and it would have been a good song alone without that bridge. But that was the icing on the cake. Don't forget, he fades out his vocals at the end of that bridge ("baby, baby, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease") for what I think is 8 bars!
As a musician for over 40 years as well as a university educated music major who plays drums semi professionally, bass, keys, all brass and voice, my theory is this. While there are still plenty of people studying music and performing live, the cut and paste functions as well as music libraries available in most DAWs has dumbed down most creatives so badly that they have not put in the time to learn music theory and history. This highlights why what Rick does is so important. He has the ability to speak into multigenerational audiences and point to historical and contemporary music and make it real for them. Hopefully inspiring them to get their learn on and discover a deeper appreciation for music across ALL genres.
I feel modern music relies heavily on algorithm. Studios tell them these particular notes are "pleasing" so all of them do it like a copy/paste homework.
The Beach Boys songs written by Brian Wilson do this all the time. Good Vibrations is a great example. The chorus has two key changes itself. The bridge is in a different key from the chorus and the verse. It's basically nonstop key changes. These key changes are a huge part of what makes this song so distinctive.
@@devonull8784 it‘s hard to believe how good of a song Good Vibrations is. As good we‘ll ever hear. I wonder why Rick never mentions the Beach Boys though.
My favorite is "Dance Dance Dance" he throws a key change right in the middle of the 3rd verse and it makes it. "At a weekend Dance we like to show up last... I PLAY IT COOL WHEN IT'S SLOW, THEN JUMP IN WHEN IT'S FAST!!!"
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys has a key change right at the BEGINNING of the song. On the downbeat of the 4th bar - boom! So effective and I can't think of another example of that in pop music.
These key changes often make the piece of music more memorable, and give a 'kick' to the track. I can see why maybe it wouldn't be used in every piece of music, but not why it has died out.
Key changes are the reason why equal temperament exists. Western music system (12 equal half tones in the octave) has been built to have the possibility to freely modulate between all the keys. If this system of music stops making modulations, we can say RIP😔
It has died out because it's a hack move used to try and re-heat a zombie song that has run out of ideas. Modulation (when you move to a different key and then back) is a totally different thing (eg the examples by the Beatles and Police) that Rick gives. But when a song is finished after two minutes and the composer just shifts it up a semitone, that's like putting sugar on a steak. Rick is normally excellent but by failing to distinguish between modulations and key changes he's missed a trick here.
@@haroldsdodge Oh dear... Where to start? "Modulation" does NOT mean that "you move to a different key and then back"; it means that there is a path from the first key to the second one. That differentiates it from a (simple) key change. Whether the Police example is even a true key change is debatable (see the discussion about modal interchange). There are key changes without modulation and with modulation; to distinguish between them is in the context of this video not really important. As far as your dislike of transposed material in general goes: No point in arguing here; you have obviously different listening expectations. Obviously not all people share those.
@@maro_from_germany I know what modulation is, having studied music for nearly 40 years. I was simplifying to make the post shorter. Of course a modulation doesn't always return "home" but in general it does. Cf every sonata Mozart and Haydn ever wrote, eg tonic to dominant (C to G for example) and then back again, usually in the space of a few bars. That's clearly different from the sort of key change you get in bad pop music (I can give you hundreds of examples but I assume I don't need to?) where the song simply shifts up a semitone for the last 45 seconds or so AND DOES NOT RETURN TO THE STARTING KEY. Since you evidently know a bit about music I probably don't need to tell you this but just in case you don't, the way you can tell the difference (assuming your ear doesn't instantly spot it) is that, in sheet music, a modulation is (usually) signified by an accidental (eg in the aforementioned C to G modulation the note F is sharpened for the duration of the modulation), whereas a "key change" is signified by a completely different key signature, eg if you jack it up from G to Ab then the one sharp in the key signature is replaced by four flats. In virtually every case, the new key signature pertains for the rest of the song (ie it stays in Ab, never returning to G; possibly even going up another semitone in really REALLY shallow tunes). I would characterise a modulation as a journey, one that usually ends up back home, whereas a key change is like someone putting on a pair of high heels and then doing the same dance that he or she was doing before. If you don't like that analogy I have others. But I trust you now understand my point. Happy to explain further if need be.
As someone who loves good music but with zero musical training I really appreciate how you make this stuff understandable. And it helps me explain to my kids at least one reason why I find most of the current music boring. Never knew how to put it in words that popular music today just seemed flat and musically uninteresting.
I really like the modulation in Eric Clapton's song Layla. The change of tone in the execution of the main riff for the "normal parts" of the song and from these to the chorus, make the riff even more spectacular.
2 года назад+38
An old friend of mine always said that the change in "Every Breath You Take" was the one million dollar chord. Indeed it is a perfect modulation.
In Enya's Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) there's a beautiful modulation from the verse to the pre-chorus, then back to the original key in the chorus. It makes for quite a transporting trip
Love this from Joni Mitchell "I thrive on change. That's probably why my chord changes are weird, because chords depict emotions. They'll be going along on one key and I'll drop off a cliff, and suddenly they will go into a whole other key signature. That will drive some people crazy, but that's how my life is." - Joni Mitchell
Adam Neely did a great video on one of the most elegant key changes in Pop some time ago: Celine Dions "All by myself". It's such a great example of shifing the mood of a song with a key change. And Adam is such a great story teller...
There are two key changes that immediately jump to mind for me: the “Breaking up is never easy I know” line from ABBA’s Knowing Me, Knowing You and the line “He told me (Let the children lose it…)” from the chorus of Starman. Wonderful!
@@arifb222Perhaps it's that the verse is in Bm while the chorus is in D. However, those can also be heard as the "same" key, D being the relative major of Bm.
@@GlennMoto Well, the commenter specifically said it was on the "breaking up is never easy" line and I don't remember any key changes happening there, cmiiw. Maybe they're just talking about a different version of the song.
“Rosanna” by Toto has modulations all the way through, from section to section. Stevie Wonder songs have them all over the place, as do Motown songs in general (probably a big part of the bump in the 60s).
I grew up during the zenith of prog rock and jazz and I'm not playing the good old days card, but your videos dissecting Steely Dan got me reanalyzing them and a lot of older stuff and realizing that a band like them would never get out their basement now. It's utterly amazing and cool that they were so succesful. Most people now used to the simplicity of pop music would be overwhelmed with that kind of complexity I bet. I do have some modern pop and due to the singers and incredible production mainly, but it's just amazing how simple 90% of it is. Most songs are 4 chords at most, and you hear the same totally predictable chord patterns ad nauseum. So formulaic it's almost AI like.
Steely Dan is just a phenomenal band. I was talking to my Mom the other day about them. I told her if I were to make 10k a week for playing guitar with Pink or 2k a week with Steely Dan, I would take Steely Dan. They were just top notch musicians.
Stacy's Mom has a surprisingly good key change in it too. I always thought that it was a silly novelty song, but once I learned to play it, I realized that it is a well-crafted, underrated gem
One thing that thrills me in Nightwish songs is the key changes, especially when it goes from one section of the song to the other. It gives a whole new life to the song. Love it
Agreed, I love the way Tuomas conceives of key changes. The one near the end of 'Ghost Love Score' (the "redeem me into childhood" part) sets up the massive ending so well!
Also, if you like key changes in heavy progressive music like Nightwish and Dream Theater, check out the new Seventh Wonder album! There are some really crazy and daring key changes on that album.
In George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord the modulation in the middle of the bridge to the key of E major is one of my favorites. It lifts the song to a whole new level, like an ascension into heaven.
Thank God you posted this Rick!!! As a rock guitarist who does session work for hip hop,r&b. Ppl are really afraid of chord changes!!! Even easy diatonic or basic blues based changes. To me it came from the lack of actual PEOPLE making music and using programs.
I would say that there are lots of people with little musical knowledge making music these days. The music industry supports them, and not so much the real musicians. There is an obscure agenda behind all this.
@@jorgepinto2085 I agree, the agenda is money. The safer the investment, the better. If a company can have their music playing on the radio or droning in the background in a store or similar venue, they want it. If it has character and would make people think about what they're actually hearing, they don't want it. Money trumps creativity and we all lose because of it.
Whole lot of interesting ideas here. One guess: Non-musicians might actually be better at writing hits. This being because they themselves are EXACTLY the people they're writing for, and they don't create music with anything unnecessary. What they piece together on their laptops is more likely to come out all-killer-no-filler: having everything a big hit needs but no clever gimmicks of the sort that musicians love - but which the listening public is indifferent toward, may not notice, or might even dislike. Just watch how much Rick - an excellent musician - loves the key changes he's illustrating. Yet Joe Schmoe might not even hear that anything changed.
@@Baribrotzer With the junk that becomes hits… that sounds exactly like the other 19 songs on the top 20.. same beats , same sounds… it’s just cookie cutter crap. Every now and then you get something that is outside the box and it lasts the rest of time.
Older songs wouldn't even have smooth key changes and they'd still sound interesting and make sense! They would just do it. Didn't need to be parallel or relative majors and minors, they'd just do whatever, transpose up or down and do whatever they want. I'd love to hear more of that again.
@@johnupdate IDK if youtube itself is the cause, but you do have artists like John Mayer dumbing down theoretical concepts such as modal interchange and rebranding them with silly names such as "pentatonic equator" to make themselves look more interesting, thus dragging entire generations of guitarists into paradigm lock. Hard to measure the influence of these celebrities but easy to hear the damage on the generations that came after them
Yeah. The Kinks' "Set Me Free" has the weirdest chording. The song is mainly in Am, but then the bridge part jumps to Bm. The root note rocks back and forth from B to Bb (maintaining the D and F# notes), and then suddenly goes to an F major. So from Bb-D-F# to F-A-C. Crazy!
God Only Knows has a superb modulation from chorus to middle and back to verse. This Whole World by Brian Wilson on Sunflower seems to change key every few bars and still sounds beautiful. You should really analyse those two songs Rick.
I'm glad you brought up Brian Wilson. One thing he did that still blows my mind is, in "Girls on the Beach", lifting the key of the song up a half-step (or step?) ... in the middle of a line of a verse! I don't know of anyone else who has done that, but it sounds so natural.
I'm a drummer, don't know enough tonality wise to explain it, bit I felt the same with many songs. Really cool the way Rick can explain this stuff to me :)
Things are really depressing in music nowadays - death of melody , death of key change , death of harmony ... and finally - death of art :( We need restart ASAP :) Thank you Rick , great video !
I remember reading a study that a computer programmer did about pop music, where he was able to calculate that the lyrics to popular music have been steadily increasing in repetitive-ness over time, to where today's music includes roughly twice the repetition that music from the 60s did. And that's just lyrics. Also, he found that the most repetitive major artist over that time was Rihanna.
I rarely comment on RUclips videos but Ricks knowledge and genuine passion for teaching people as well as the love of creating the videos is overwhelming. He’s one of very few subscriptions where I watch all of this video from start to finish. Just wanted to say thank you for taking the effort and it really is appreciated. Now the ask … Prince… talk to us. Pure inspiration of a musician / artist. Would love an episode on him from you.
I’ll be there and man in the mirror are my favorite Michael jackson(Jacksons) songs and now I know why, thank you Rick for always showing us why we love good songs
Boston's "Let me take you home tonight" starts in D and when it gets to the outro changes to E, and in the middle of said outro changes again to F#. And I can't stress enough how much those changes make the ending of the song (and album) so much powerful
It is a treat to experience a true craftsman at work and this is also for musicians. This is sadly so much rarer nowadays. It is like I miss the era when there was no shortcuts and true skill was required.
This video is worth GOLD -- Awesome Music Teaching Award for Rick Beato. When you teach while singing to, and playing parts of popular songs it's fun to watch and learn. Being able to put the keys up for us to see as they change is magical. This is the beauty of the internet because you couldn't do that nearly as smoothly and easily if you were teaching in person. Lack of tonal change in the music is part of UN Agenda 21 and 30. I read that they want to make everyone depressed and they're targeting every industry to do it.
Hey Rick, I am a musical illiterate, but you just put down in keys my feeling about the last decades of music. I am 50, and a lifelong Genesis fan, but I have listened to and appreciated all kinds of music (EW&F, Weather Report, Santana, Madonna, Michael Jackson, you name it). I really do miss the richness and heart of the music in the last few decades. Thank you for your work, as always, much appreciated. If musicians like you are not around the net the day of tomorrow, who will teach the younger generations? 🤘🤘❤️❤️
That's the word - RICHNESS. And richness comes from depth and detail, often, complexity. Those take time, effort, study, and deep content knowledge. See a pattern ?
@@earlofmar11 He was/is the connector - they’d do bits -- MR is the bits guy - just to see if he could tie it together. He’s quite brilliant, and that I got intrinsically/intuitively before I understood, technically how he really did it - creative/smart guy; see why he was going to be an astrophysicist haha. What a band - chemistry of the 5 together and blending of their strengths as composers; how they put it all together and made it work should have its own genre. 😂Epic. Cheers.
every one is using the same computer software, plus auto tune, pitch correction, click to time etc etc, the aim has become homogenized perfection and that was never rock n roll. plus before you had studio's with guys that developed rooms, mixing desks and sounds over years, each studio was different, now its all digital, oh and nobody seems to be saying anything relevent to our lives anymore
@@michaelneary888neary7 yeah that's what really killed music --- too much reliance on digital technology and no heart and soul in music or lyrics anymore
It's a real shame key changes have gone away. They give a song so much more emotional power! I hope one day they'll come back, but I have a feeling I won't be around when they do. So glad I know where to find them in the songs of my generation, and maybe by sharing them (as you do @Rick Beato), they will catch on again!
I am not a musician but I love music and I can truly appreciate your channel and your wisdom and expertise in music. I hear notes and melodies but its good to learn that there is so much to know how a song comes out or sounds like the way they do. More power to you!!!!
Some artists were known for their frequent use of modulation. Stevie Wonder is a great example, my favourite is the song "For Your Love". It changes key no less than three times! Other examples of him doing similar are in "Happy Birthday" "Knocks Me Off My Feet" "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" and "Shelter In The Rain" to name a few!
Here in Europe we are used to the key change in the end of a song, due to the Eurovision Song Contest, where we even talk about the Eurovision key change. But I have noticed that the Eurovision key change has become more rare.
Don’t forget Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love”, which modulates a fourth up at the end (from C major to F major). The limit of what’s possible in any given song is really just determined by the respective singer’s range. 😁
I'm not a musician (I played way back in high school), and I almost never comment, but I'm glad you did this. I think what I found most interesting about the article was the thesis of why this is happening. The author hypothesized (probably rightly) that songs are no longer written linearly (sitting down with a piano or guitar) and writing the song from beginning to end. Instead they are written vertically, using ProTools or some other audio software. Musicians and producers can take a riff or a drum beat and loop it in the software and they write the song with the various components, layering them on top of one another. It's interesting and kind of sad.
Yeah writing vertically by pilling a load of parts onto an 8 bar loop and then spreading those parts out to make song. It can be great, but unfortunately money has removed much of anything else from the mainstream. Some of my favourite music is harmonically static, but the fact that pop music is expected to be this way to be successful, is indeed very sad.
@@gordonborsboom7460 And who, I suspect, iron out anything that's musically interesting - because along the line one of 'em's going to be an all-killer-no-filler minimalist, and cut out any key changes or unexpected chords.
The weird thing is, key changes are a LOT easier with this software than without. You can pretty much write everything in C major or A minor (or whatever mode) and then just push the whole section up or down. So I don't get why writing in software would cause this. I think it is more a rebellion against anything not purely related to rhythms.
It made me smile that it's not just me when it comes to "I'll Be There".... that song was pure magic, and still is. So much stuff from the hyper-creative music world of the 60s-70s is being forgotten.
What always blows me away about that song is how effortlessly young Michael sings it as if he knows what it's written about. That guy never gets any credit as a singer, he was so expressive and soulful, even as a child, it's almost incomprehensible.
I'm not a musician, but I always loved the key change in the middle of To Know Him is To Love Him. It just encapsulates the anguish and frustration of a teenage girl not being able to understand why the boy she loves won't love her back.
I'm a musician, but sadly, an alcoholic. I've created 40 or 50 songs, but not much lately. I'm half way there, and living on a prayer. I'd like to buy all your materials and use them..., but I probably wouldn't use them. I massively appreciate you though. You always inspire me, and help push me toward wanting to share more beauty with the world.♡
Alcohol shouldn't be used to get you through the day --- only use it as a reward for a long day of work --- I only sip a half glass of wine to unwind from a busy day
@@fredwerza3478 For an alcoholic i think one should get rid of alcohol as a reward in general. Maybe for anyone really. There are tons of ways to wind down without alcohol and its side effects on sleep and general physical and mental health
So true. Nearly every single song these days is melodically boring and monotonous. Reminds me of what Rick once said before in a stream about older music being a more "nutritious diet" of music compared to today's music. Though a select few songs of today are good in different ways even if they don't have key changes I guess, but they are so few.
Earth, Wind and Fire "After the Love Is Gone" is an entire song of modulation. I saw someone analyze it saying it's "a masterclass on the circle of fifths". They used interesting modulations toward the ends of some other songs, my favorite being "You Can't Hide Love".
david foster's and jay graydon's masterpiece. they won a grammy for it, these were the years of sophisticated jazzy pop songs, sad they're over, only stupid boring music for the people on the radio today. glad I was young in the 70ies and 80ies...
One of my favorite internal modulations is the bridge of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun". They set it up perfectly, because it doesn't happen after the first chorus, but then it does after the second. Very dramatic.
Ironically just listened to the new Vulfpeck tune "New Guru" where Antwaun Stanley calls out "lets take it up" so they modulate up, then after one line of the chorus says "my bad, bring that back down" so they return to the original key. Love it.
I'm 77, and recently started listening to 50's Oldies on Sirius for nostalgia's sake. As I listened to more and more songs, I became very aware of the key changes on so many of them. I even started listening for them. Mack the Knife had 5! I figured it was a way to make those songs more interesting.
"I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 is still one of my favorite songs from my childhood, and yeah, that beautiful modulation within the piece is a wonderfully lifting section.
One interesting example of a song using key changes is "Listen To Your Heart" by Roxette, which shifts up a key for the bridge, and then the chord progression in the bridge resolves into another shift up by one key for the final repetitions of the chorus. It is very well done.
Roxette are fantastic songwriters. I think there's something in the water in Sweden. Their recent cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" is fantastic.
@@ischmidt Per Gessle wrote most of the songs, though Marie Fredriksson was a great writer, she's got more credits on her solo work, than with Roxette (and her album "the change" is worth checking out and makes you wonder what Roxette could have done if the project used more of her writing). After her untimely death, Gessle continues to perform with a few other singers as PG Roxette (and that's what the Metallica tribute was).
@@ischmidt Check out Fredriksson's album _Den ständiga resan._ I bought this many years ago, don't even know where and when. The music is very different from Roxette but has a lot of very interesting songs; not usual fare but very worth seeking out!
I still remember sitting down with my friend (pre-internet era) with our guitars in hand trying to figure out what the hell is that fascinating jump at the end of "I'll Be There For You" by Bon Jovi. I always appreciate a key change in any song, no matter the genre. it gives you that sense of sweet surprise!
This deserves a "Part 2" from Rick. Would have been cool to a have heard some of the naff "truck drivers' key changes" trying to make a bad song from rolling all the way down the hill. A key change that works is subtle and as Rick demonstrates so beautifully,
The impressive key change in Living On A Prayer is all Desmond Child. He is basically famous for his interesting modulations. Try looking at the chord structure of songs like Alice Cooper's Poison and Michael Bolton's How Can We Be Lovers. You'll see that key changes mid-melody is a theme in his work.
This video is another great example of why your channel is so important for music lovers. You give us a different subject yet again and explain it perfectly. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada. 🇨🇦
2 great songs with modulations that come to mind: 1. Dreams - the Cranberries, in the bridge 2. Ooh Child - Five Stairsteps, in the chorus. Very effective means of adding a lift or sparking interest in a new section.
I'm not that big into theory, but i remember very well the first time i've heard "After the Love Has Gone" from Earth, Wind & Fire. That must have been the most vivid musical experience i've ever heard. The way it is lifting up higher and higher throughout the song is just magical. My favorite song of all time!
So there's this really wild Brazilian song by Milton Nascimento (famous Brazilian singer/songwriter) called "Tanto", that in the last minute modulates in ascending half-steps like 10+ times! It's definitely a 70s song with 70s style production, but very powerful once you get into it - and Milton's voice is like that of an angel.
For like 20 years I knew Milton Nascimento only through "Cravo e canela", it was on some compilation disc friend gave me back in high school. Then the YT came, and boy, does he have an opus! I love Brazilian music.
When I started learning guitar (coming up on 47 years ago now, unbelievable) I really got into jazz guitar and jazz in general. In that genre a song modulating through 5 key changes is not unusual in any way nor does it sound weird - just interesting.
I remember hearing the key change in You’re the inspiration the first time and thinking “Wow! That change really takes it to another level!” Without knowing anything about music, later on I learned it was pretty common on many hit songs.
I love that you mention Barry M. I think he is quite underappreciated (my mum and sister are big fans). His style is very 'showtunes' where keeping interest through a song is important. And he does it very well. Sadly mainstream music today seems lazy and vocally simple.
I grew up on Manilow music and I still have all of my mum's records from back in the day. I saw him in concert (my first) just after Copacabana hit the charts. What a time to be alive!
@Stephen Nester certain artist like Luther Vandross, Johnny Cash and Tom Jones don't need to write a song in order to project their being through the music and make it theirs.
Great video Rick! I too lament the use of key changes in modern pop. I was listening to Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" the other day - First an internal modulation from a verse in G to chorus in Bb! Then the ultimate EPIC lift modulation to the last chorus in B!!
My favourite key changing song is Scott Walker's "The Seventh Seal". Almost every verse is half step higher. And wonderful Scott's voice and arrangements. Beautiful song.
Songs you have known for years, become more beautiful when Rick talks about them and explains how they have been build up. It is like an art expert explains how a beautiful painting has been made and what details we should pay attention too.
When I explain such things to my friends they say I'm destroying this music because songs are not beautiful any more when they know how they are built. Strange, isn't it?...
You‘re so right. It‘s like being back in school, where the Book you read during your language course is really beginning to make Sense, After you‘ve discussed it and your teacher explained, what‘s written during the lines. Amazing!
Stevie Wonder' "Golden Lady" and "Superwoman" are two of my favorites Rick. If I'm hearing it correctly, I think he modulates up half a step twice on each song. Bill Withers jumps up a half key I think five times on "Harlem"!
The key change during the breakdown in the middle of "Birdland" by Maynard Ferguson is by far the nastiest key change I always think about. Right before the sax solo. Horns going crazy. So badass
The half step key change in "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers adds an intriguing spark that helps to refocus the listener's attention to the serious nature and meaning of this ballad ("Every gambler knows, that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away, and knowing what to keep").
Being from Brazil, I grew up with songs that would modulate several times as if nothing was even happening. But the current state of music is just not that interesting in general...good thing we have so many beautiful creations to quench our thirst at...and Rick to remind us to appreciate it all!
@@experience5988 Yes, that's nowadays...have you ever heard anything Brazilian from the 60s, 70s, 80, 90s? You're just confirming what I've said: the poor state of current world music. Not only Brazil, everywhere!
@@experience5988 brazilian mainstream music is "Sertanejo Universitário". "Funk Carioca" and it's subgenres are actually the creative trends in brazilian current music scene
The Beach Boys used key changes of all types in many of their songs. Four that come to mind are Surfer Girl, I Get Around, Dance Dance Dance and Don't Worry Baby. They made them sound so effortless.
I always liked the major third modulation in Jackie Blue by Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I get the feeling of the song really opening up as it enters the B part. (The A part always starts with the same line so it's the closest thing to a chorus, but it's pretty versey to me so we'll call the parts A and B). A Part: Ebm7 Abm7 into B Part: G C G C Dm7 Cmaj7.
I was waiting for a video that addressed this. In music, the most important things to me are key changes and harmonies. I listen for those always. I'm a child of the 70's and 80's and grew up with the R&B heyday of the 90's--which explains my preference for key changes. The way you described key changes echoes my thoughts about them. It's a way to give rising action-shifting gears or resolution-grand finale to a song, depending on where its located. Your video on Sergio Mendes "Never Gonna Let You Go" illusrates the rising action key change perfectly! If you want a song past 2005 with a boatload of key changes, listen to Beyonce's "Love on Top." It's very obvious in its rising action but also acts as a resolution at the same time. Thank you for covering the topic of key changes; it's one of the two most important features of a song to me.
Entirely too true in the vast majority of popular music. Lack of key changes or even time changes. As a consequence there is little to remember or come back to. Thank you Rick for your efforts to continue music education and hopefully bring some life back into musical creativity.
@@matthewchunk3689I agree. It’s not just the chord changes and time signatures are boring now. There’s little soul to the lyrics and the melodies are as lame and blah as can get. There’s a handful of songs a year that have any level of depth and that is almost wishful thinking.
Another great vid, Rick! Your knowledge is amazing, but it is your passion and enthusiasm, coupled with your personality, that make you so watchable. You are a great teacher/presenter!
It is interesting that this realization is pervading the thought-space recently. A good friend and I were just having a conversation about this yesterday. Of course, I am not a musical expert, just a lover and consumer of music. It is NOT an evolution of music but instead the death of it. I am so glad that you addressed this fairly recent tragedy.
One key change that immediately comes to my mind, when thinking about lifts, is the final chorus in my heart will go on. It just makes that last chorus glorious.
@@wickedhouston5538 yes they do, but not everyone has the money to afford big equipment in the beginning. I see it as a big plus that youngins can start explore creating & making music with a minimal budget. According to your comment i feel like you have a problem with mainstream, sampled stuff. Drakes Music feels very well produced in my ears. Music is always evolving, and one day people will realize that the modern charts scheme is not really it anymore and will drift into a different style. I mean it has always been like that, but that is what makes music so interesting.
Mark Hollis was a unrecognised genius, one of the absolute best but funnily the songs that made it to hits for the band were some of his least favourite ones. The colour of spring and Spirit of Eden are some of the best albums of the 80's.
I got to see Talk Talk open for Elvis Costello back then in our smallish area. The audience went nuts for Talk Talk and they had to come back for an encore song. Then again, we made Elvis come back to the stage three or four times. What a night. I still love the Talk Talk sound.
I only noticed the other day that China Girl by Bowie -a song I have been familiar with for fiorty years and have thought a good deal about - makes a key change from major to brooding minor at a critical point about two minutes in, and how this is part of the expressive fabric of the track:. It works together with changes in his vocals and the rhythm section to suggest an inexorable pull by outside forces on the lovers in the song, the sense that they are trapped by forces beyond their control. I'm from Sweden, where this kind of unobtrusive major-to-minor shift is found all over the place in folk music, so I guess I'm so used to this device that it went under the radar with me in Bowie. :)
Great episode! My only complaint was that it was too short. The first 45's my parents let me buy in the store (Jamesway in upstate NY) when I was an early teen was Mandy by Barry Manilow and Close to You The Carpenters (I still love both songs).
One of the most awesomes key changes that I've heard in my life is Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming, by Deep Purple. That final solo keep changing the key until ends in Dm (the main key of the song). Absolutely fantastic!
Indeed! That's a fantastic solo. Even though it sounds like Steve Morse plays variations of the same pattern throughout, he comes up with a twist almost every four bars. And he never noodles!
I think it's mainly due to the popularity of Hip Hop or the crossovers between Hip Hop and Pop. Also, back in time lyrics and music were written at the same time, it was a story, nowadays instrumentals get made up front and then artists try to come up with something.
Absolutely! Modulation is a key factor in the "surprise" element that is so crucial as a music listener. I have learned a little bit about it, and used some modulations in my band´s songs and it is really a big and beautiful thing to add. It is sad to hear that they are kind of disappearing in modern music. Why is that? Current pop music just going for huge choruses and that´s all? Shame on pop music. As musicians and music lovers and listeners, modulations will live forever. Great video, Rick.
While Ric reacts on the modulation with wide eyes and pointing to the air saying with his brain "hear that?" I am equally amazed. His musical knowledge is incredibly amazing. You are a great teacher, Sir and you have my greatest R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Something I don't hear often enough in good music is the number of unique parts to the song. I've found that it takes at least four unique parts - intro, verse, chorus, solo, bridge, outro, etc. - to make a great song. A lot of the top songs I'm hearing nowadays have maybe 3 elements but normally 2
Good music has to keep changing to remain interesting, even if just a little bit. So much modern music has so little change, even if I can enjoy the beat for ten seconds, what else ya got for me??
Rick, you really should do a full video on Manilow. The guy is such a songwriter’s songwriter. I’ve ever performed much of anything in his style, but his live album (on 8-track) was one of those critical encounters that shaped my relationship with music.
Without knowing it was a key change, I always loved it when they start singing higher at some point in the song like you showed in Living on a Prayer or Every Breathe You Take. It adds intensity to the song.
She's Gone by Hall and Oates is another example where it modulates up four half steps before the end of the song. By the way, unconventional or "weird" changes have the element of surprise that so much popular promoted music these days lacks.
But is that "element of surprise" needed in a hit song? It might not be. In fact, it might be a detriment to big-time popularity - more likely to make the average listener think "what the f#$% is this!?" and turn the dial.
@@Baribrotzer , but it might the exact problem, that all the mainstrem music nowadays are "designed". It's made by people that are to well educated. Written by people that have learned all the theory and read all the analyses on what's makes a hit, so the result is all new songs sound formulaic and fairly similar. Even the modern production sounds formulaic, because all producers have learned the exact same tricks to get the same now "popular" sound. We are missing the "amateurs" that did stuff only because they they tought it sounded cool, but couldn't analyse music like Rick do here. Like Kurt Cobain had as far as I know minimal knowledge on what he did, he couldn't tell you what chords he was playing .. and his songs became hits.
@@westmus It's also a matter of the tools they're using. Most pop musicians today use laptops - on which it's idiotically easy to repeat something a hundred times, layer other stuff on top of it, then bring that other stuff in and out to create a verse and chorus. Kurt used a guitar, on which you're more likely to think, "now where does this want to go? (tries chord) Not here, that's boring. (tries another chord) not there, that's weird and sounds random. (tries yet another chord) Yes! That's right!" And if that happens to be E although the rest of the song is in D minor, then that's what it happens to do.
@@westmus Addendum: Kurt may not have known any formal theory. But I would guess that he knew a bunch of songs, and from learning and playing those those he knew how chords worked. A number of rock guys are like that: They don't know what the parts of their musical vocabulary are called, but they know how they sound and how they work.
Great to go over some examples of key changes, but would have loved Beato to have engaged with the underlying reasons for _why_ the pattern is vanishing in modern music. The source article talks about this at some length, esp. w/r/t to how digital recording software encourages people to write by assembling parts together in a copy-paste method, writing vertically rather than linearly.
These are all great examples and I love every one of them. But my favorite remains " we've only just begun" written by Paul Williams. How does he fit all those amazing impossible key changes in and makes them sound effortless. Pure genius!
Another use of key change is to avoid repetition fatigue, e.g. in a storytelling ballad with 10 verses. About half-way thru, you up a 1/2 tone. It helps intensify story drama.
I think my favorite song that features a prominent key change is Sting “If I ever lose my faith in you.” Key changes were still fairly common in the 90s. Another fun example was Enya “Orinoco Flow.”
That is the first song I remember, ‘sail away’ was around in the 80s on top of the pops and remember being in a chair and it was on the colour TV and soothed me to sleep.
Rick, we are the same age and it is uncanny how we love the same songs! Thank you for validating my feelings about the loss of good music. (I'll Be There" is one of my favorites too) I wonder, will deeply melodic music ever return?
Michael Jackson had a purpose there. It was to emphasize the word CHANGE, by actually changing the feeling of the song. Art is about elevating simple concepts to higher levels.
Yes, and it sounded beautiful. Why would modern music remove key changes when they give so much feeling to a song?
Word painting!
@@SleepBeforeYouThink because modern music isn’t about art anymore. It’s about comfortable, safe commodification. 😒
@@Jcremo Yes, it is literally what happens with anything once it becomes a commodity in the hands of the corporations. Nowadays its all about massproduction and sales.
@@SleepBeforeYouThink - This is my question, too. Not that I am wild about all of the choices to do so, but I seriously am trying to understand why they're no longer 'in'. Just wait - They'll be back.
I just saw an interview with Sting where he was saying that the bridge in a song is where the therapy happens. For example, you're sad about losing a lover but in the bridge you reconsider your previous emotion and that maybe things will be better after all. The loss of complexity in modern music is such a shame.
Well put!
I also saw this but I have long been disappointed with current mainstream music. I suspect the voices are not as good. And there is less creativity musically. But I'm old so....
Whqt interview
Do modern music makers even know what a bridge is? LOL, they all seem so clueless.
i like that idea. maybe catharsis is the word, at least that's the thing that was supposed to happen in Therapy... maybe the loss of complexity stems from people not really feeling that shift in the same way, or perhaps not looking for the kind of lift that a key change adds to the song. for me, it can seem artificial, as if the musician were forcing the emotion into the song itself by manipulating the presentation. i mean that's what artists do. but, aren't people also looking for a particular mood or feeling in the music they listen to; A particular artist or genre providing reliable content? more of a pill than a therapy session?
I always liked the verse-chorus key change in Elton John's "I'm Still Standing". The A major to A minor change give it so much more power.
Major to minor or minor to major on the same note is always a good study of contrasts. "Time In A Bottle" by Jim Croce is a classic example: D minor verses, D major chorus. The tone of the song changes tremendously between the two.
By the way, "I'm Still Standing" is my favorite Elton John song of all, for that reason.
Love the joy on your face when you hear a key change you’ve doubtless heard a hundred times before. Pure passion.
I never appreciated how stratospheric Jon Bon Jovi’s voice was at the end of “Livin’ On A Prayer’ until I saw Rick Beato emote it!
@@DeflatingAtheism I've read that Jon Bon Jovi eventually (even before his recent medical voice issues) stopped singing that line because his voice couldn't handle it anymore. He lets the audience sing it alone now.
I'm a non-musician but I always appreciate your keen insights and deep musical knowledge.
Same here!
Burke Long I’m trying to learn guitar but couldn’t agree more. Watching these channels on youtube has taught me to appreciate music in totally new ways
🤘☹️🖤
It looks as if key changes started happening just as The Beatles got going. Maybe The Beatles used key changes and lots of musicians realised that a key change was a good idea.
@@simonmultiverse6349 I'm no musician, I'm just asking. But haven't there been key changes in popular music since the 15th century?
@@simonmultiverse6349 Key changes pre-date the Beatles by several centuries in Western Music. There are numerous Elvis Presley songs with key changes. Frank Sinatra "New York New York" has many of them.
A key change I've been obsessed with lately is the chorus on "Come on Eileen". Such a great sudden change that really makes the song on top of the hooks. Great video Rick!
Oh yes, I forgot about that one, loved that song ❤
That’s an example of a key change compensating for the fact that the song writing has nowhere to go and the song would be too short or too repetitive without it. It’s a trick. Nothing more.
Yes yes yes!!!!!
The level of musicianship involved in just that slow accelerando at the end is astounding!
You sir, are the music theory professor I always wished I had. 30 years ago I dropped a music theory course because the prof made this stuff as exciting as watching mold grow. Your content makes me grieve that decision. So beautiful. I’m trying to save so that I can support your channel. Please keep going.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone compare Nirvana to John Williams, Rick definitely has a way of always keeping it interesting
This discussion of lack of key changes is bullshit. Don't listen to the new pop crap. Listen to Dream Theater.
Make some new stuff. Don't listen to the radio.
@@Saerdna833 I get what you are saying, but these old songs were actual hits and played on the radio. They weren't underground, practically everybody knew these great songs.
@@Saerdna833 😂😂 you realize that’s why that discussion is around right?
Same here. My music teacher at school was a right old snob, all the posh kids who were having instrument lessons were "it" and the rest of us proles rhymed with that. Pretty much put me off for life.
I saw an interview with Sting on how he wrote Every Breath You Take, which is easily the biggest hit of his entire career. He said once he finished composing it, working out all the details on paper, he went to his piano to play it and when he was finished he said he knew immediately he had a number one hit. I surmise when he hit that bridge, ("since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace"), that goes up, he almost couldn't control his giddiness....... because that made that song. Yes it's got a great hook, a great beat, great lyrics, and it would have been a good song alone without that bridge. But that was the icing on the cake. Don't forget, he fades out his vocals at the end of that bridge ("baby, baby, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease") for what I think is 8 bars!
@@videogroove I don’t know, the riff seems to be more with the bass line. Andy just followed Sting.
That is such a great bridge!!! Plays in my head often.
Actually I have always disliked the bridge,it is too pop
As Alan Pollack said about The Beatles, great songs have great bridges. And Every Breath You Take has a classic bridge.
Great analysis
As a musician for over 40 years as well as a university educated music major who plays drums semi professionally, bass, keys, all brass and voice, my theory is this. While there are still plenty of people studying music and performing live, the cut and paste functions as well as music libraries available in most DAWs has dumbed down most creatives so badly that they have not put in the time to learn music theory and history. This highlights why what Rick does is so important. He has the ability to speak into multigenerational audiences and point to historical and contemporary music and make it real for them. Hopefully inspiring them to get their learn on and discover a deeper appreciation for music across ALL genres.
I feel modern music relies heavily on algorithm. Studios tell them these particular notes are "pleasing" so all of them do it like a copy/paste homework.
He's not Mozart. He's vastly inferior.
The Beach Boys songs written by Brian Wilson do this all the time. Good Vibrations is a great example. The chorus has two key changes itself. The bridge is in a different key from the chorus and the verse. It's basically nonstop key changes. These key changes are a huge part of what makes this song so distinctive.
So many wonderful examples from Brian. This Whole World modulates over and over. And he was always able to do it so seamlessly.
Distinctive is a polite understatement. Good Vibrations is a legitimate nominee for the best Pop/Rock composition. Way ahead of its time.
@@devonull8784 it‘s hard to believe how good of a song Good Vibrations is. As good we‘ll ever hear.
I wonder why Rick never mentions the Beach Boys though.
My favorite is "Dance Dance Dance" he throws a key change right in the middle of the 3rd verse and it makes it. "At a weekend Dance we like to show up last... I PLAY IT COOL WHEN IT'S SLOW, THEN JUMP IN WHEN IT'S FAST!!!"
At one point in Good Vibrations they actually sing "mo-mo-modulations". :D
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys has a key change right at the BEGINNING of the song. On the downbeat of the 4th bar - boom! So effective and I can't think of another example of that in pop music.
Brian was such a friggin genius
These key changes often make the piece of music more memorable, and give a 'kick' to the track. I can see why maybe it wouldn't be used in every piece of music, but not why it has died out.
Key changes are like a distinctive spice.
Key changes are the reason why equal temperament exists. Western music system (12 equal half tones in the octave) has been built to have the possibility to freely modulate between all the keys. If this system of music stops making modulations, we can say RIP😔
It has died out because it's a hack move used to try and re-heat a zombie song that has run out of ideas. Modulation (when you move to a different key and then back) is a totally different thing (eg the examples by the Beatles and Police) that Rick gives. But when a song is finished after two minutes and the composer just shifts it up a semitone, that's like putting sugar on a steak. Rick is normally excellent but by failing to distinguish between modulations and key changes he's missed a trick here.
@@haroldsdodge Oh dear... Where to start? "Modulation" does NOT mean that "you move to a different key and then back"; it means that there is a path from the first key to the second one. That differentiates it from a (simple) key change. Whether the Police example is even a true key change is debatable (see the discussion about modal interchange). There are key changes without modulation and with modulation; to distinguish between them is in the context of this video not really important.
As far as your dislike of transposed material in general goes: No point in arguing here; you have obviously different listening expectations. Obviously not all people share those.
@@maro_from_germany I know what modulation is, having studied music for nearly 40 years. I was simplifying to make the post shorter. Of course a modulation doesn't always return "home" but in general it does. Cf every sonata Mozart and Haydn ever wrote, eg tonic to dominant (C to G for example) and then back again, usually in the space of a few bars. That's clearly different from the sort of key change you get in bad pop music (I can give you hundreds of examples but I assume I don't need to?) where the song simply shifts up a semitone for the last 45 seconds or so AND DOES NOT RETURN TO THE STARTING KEY. Since you evidently know a bit about music I probably don't need to tell you this but just in case you don't, the way you can tell the difference (assuming your ear doesn't instantly spot it) is that, in sheet music, a modulation is (usually) signified by an accidental (eg in the aforementioned C to G modulation the note F is sharpened for the duration of the modulation), whereas a "key change" is signified by a completely different key signature, eg if you jack it up from G to Ab then the one sharp in the key signature is replaced by four flats. In virtually every case, the new key signature pertains for the rest of the song (ie it stays in Ab, never returning to G; possibly even going up another semitone in really REALLY shallow tunes). I would characterise a modulation as a journey, one that usually ends up back home, whereas a key change is like someone putting on a pair of high heels and then doing the same dance that he or she was doing before. If you don't like that analogy I have others. But I trust you now understand my point. Happy to explain further if need be.
As someone who loves good music but with zero musical training I really appreciate how you make this stuff understandable. And it helps me explain to my kids at least one reason why I find most of the current music boring. Never knew how to put it in words that popular music today just seemed flat and musically uninteresting.
Totally agree to the key change in "I'll be there".... total killer and transfers the heartfelt lyrics perfectly
I really like the modulation in Eric Clapton's song Layla. The change of tone in the execution of the main riff for the "normal parts" of the song and from these to the chorus, make the riff even more spectacular.
An old friend of mine always said that the change in "Every Breath You Take" was the one million dollar chord. Indeed it is a perfect modulation.
Listen to Police's King of Pain... several of these modulations. Sting was never shy to modulate and used it to great effect.
One of my favorite episodes was your breakdown of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. So many key modulations that go unnoticed. It's genius composition.
In Enya's Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) there's a beautiful modulation from the verse to the pre-chorus, then back to the original key in the chorus. It makes for quite a transporting trip
Love this from Joni Mitchell
"I thrive on change. That's probably why my chord changes are weird, because chords depict emotions. They'll be going along on one key and I'll drop off a cliff, and suddenly they will go into a whole other key signature. That will drive some people crazy, but that's how my life is." - Joni Mitchell
Adam Neely did a great video on one of the most elegant key changes in Pop some time ago: Celine Dions "All by myself". It's such a great example of shifing the mood of a song with a key change. And Adam is such a great story teller...
There are two key changes that immediately jump to mind for me: the “Breaking up is never easy I know” line from ABBA’s Knowing Me, Knowing You and the line “He told me (Let the children lose it…)” from the chorus of Starman. Wonderful!
How is the one from ABBA a key change?
@@arifb222Perhaps it's that the verse is in Bm while the chorus is in D. However, those can also be heard as the "same" key, D being the relative major of Bm.
@@GlennMoto Well, the commenter specifically said it was on the "breaking up is never easy" line and I don't remember any key changes happening there, cmiiw. Maybe they're just talking about a different version of the song.
“Rosanna” by Toto has modulations all the way through, from section to section. Stevie Wonder songs have them all over the place, as do Motown songs in general (probably a big part of the bump in the 60s).
I grew up during the zenith of prog rock and jazz and I'm not playing the good old days card, but your videos dissecting Steely Dan got me reanalyzing them and a lot of older stuff and realizing that a band like them would never get out their basement now. It's utterly amazing and cool that they were so succesful. Most people now used to the simplicity of pop music would be overwhelmed with that kind of complexity I bet. I do have some modern pop and due to the singers and incredible production mainly, but it's just amazing how simple 90% of it is. Most songs are 4 chords at most, and you hear the same totally predictable chord patterns ad nauseum. So formulaic it's almost AI like.
my band is called Semaphora and I think we are maybe exactly that modern band that will never get out of the basement
Steely Dan is just a phenomenal band. I was talking to my Mom the other day about them. I told her if I were to make 10k a week for playing guitar with Pink or 2k a week with Steely Dan, I would take Steely Dan. They were just top notch musicians.
Steely dan truly is a different beast.
Stacy's Mom has a surprisingly good key change in it too. I always thought that it was a silly novelty song, but once I learned to play it, I realized that it is a well-crafted, underrated gem
One thing that thrills me in Nightwish songs is the key changes, especially when it goes from one section of the song to the other. It gives a whole new life to the song. Love it
Bands like Nightwish and Dream Theater are my most listened to. For the same reason. Key changes, time signature changes, etc.
Agreed, I love the way Tuomas conceives of key changes. The one near the end of 'Ghost Love Score' (the "redeem me into childhood" part) sets up the massive ending so well!
Also, if you like key changes in heavy progressive music like Nightwish and Dream Theater, check out the new Seventh Wonder album! There are some really crazy and daring key changes on that album.
In George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord the modulation in the middle of the bridge to the key of E major is one of my favorites. It lifts the song to a whole new level, like an ascension into heaven.
Also true of 'He's So Fine' by the Chiffons...
@@kenkur27 No it is not. There is no such modulation in "He's so Fine" by the Chiffons. Not even close. Listen if you have ears.
I think the reference was to the plagiarism case against Harrison.
It would be a great exercise to see Rick grab a recent top hit and work a key change into it.
Cherry stuff as always.
Google smells like teen spirit in a major key. It’s like Disney rock.
Thank God you posted this Rick!!! As a rock guitarist who does session work for hip hop,r&b. Ppl are really afraid of chord changes!!! Even easy diatonic or basic blues based changes. To me it came from the lack of actual PEOPLE making music and using programs.
I would say that there are lots of people with little musical knowledge making music these days. The music industry supports them, and not so much the real musicians. There is an obscure agenda behind all this.
I was thinking the same thing, any dufus with a computer can chuck stuff out now.
@@jorgepinto2085 I agree, the agenda is money. The safer the investment, the better. If a company can have their music playing on the radio or droning in the background in a store or similar venue, they want it. If it has character and would make people think about what they're actually hearing, they don't want it. Money trumps creativity and we all lose because of it.
Whole lot of interesting ideas here. One guess: Non-musicians might actually be better at writing hits.
This being because they themselves are EXACTLY the people they're writing for, and they don't create music with anything unnecessary. What they piece together on their laptops is more likely to come out all-killer-no-filler: having everything a big hit needs but no clever gimmicks of the sort that musicians love - but which the listening public is indifferent toward, may not notice, or might even dislike. Just watch how much Rick - an excellent musician - loves the key changes he's illustrating. Yet Joe Schmoe might not even hear that anything changed.
@@Baribrotzer With the junk that becomes hits… that sounds exactly like the other 19 songs on the top 20.. same beats , same sounds… it’s just cookie cutter crap. Every now and then you get something that is outside the box and it lasts the rest of time.
Older songs wouldn't even have smooth key changes and they'd still sound interesting and make sense! They would just do it. Didn't need to be parallel or relative majors and minors, they'd just do whatever, transpose up or down and do whatever they want. I'd love to hear more of that again.
since youtube is around, the keychanges are gone …
@@johnupdate IDK if youtube itself is the cause, but you do have artists like John Mayer dumbing down theoretical concepts such as modal interchange and rebranding them with silly names such as "pentatonic equator" to make themselves look more interesting, thus dragging entire generations of guitarists into paradigm lock. Hard to measure the influence of these celebrities but easy to hear the damage on the generations that came after them
Yeah. The Kinks' "Set Me Free" has the weirdest chording. The song is mainly in Am, but then the bridge part jumps to Bm. The root note rocks back and forth from B to Bb (maintaining the D and F# notes), and then suddenly goes to an F major. So from Bb-D-F# to F-A-C. Crazy!
When art becomes an industry, risk and unique expression is minimised
@@Eff_Marti Pentatonic equator is just a theoretical idea about how to play pentatonics on guitar, nothing to do with key changes.
You're a treasure, Rick. You continue to bring a wide variety of insight and education to all of us who love and play music.
God Only Knows has a superb modulation from chorus to middle and back to verse. This Whole World by Brian Wilson on Sunflower seems to change key every few bars and still sounds beautiful. You should really analyse those two songs Rick.
I'm glad you brought up Brian Wilson. One thing he did that still blows my mind is, in "Girls on the Beach", lifting the key of the song up a half-step (or step?) ... in the middle of a line of a verse! I don't know of anyone else who has done that, but it sounds so natural.
Good VIbrations, as well.
I remember being 8-9 years old and hearing “Penny Lane” and thinking: what in the world is this?? Gave me a feeling that’s indescribable.
I thought the pretty nurse was selling puppies from a train when I was a kid.
The key change is down, but the melody goes up. I guess that irritates the listener for a moment and makes this key change so powerful.
"It" is a song with more than one melody!
To this day, this song makes me happy. It's magical just like the rest of their countless classics.
I'm a drummer, don't know enough tonality wise to explain it, bit I felt the same with many songs. Really cool the way Rick can explain this stuff to me :)
Things are really depressing in music nowadays - death of melody , death of key change , death of harmony ... and finally - death of art :( We need restart ASAP :)
Thank you Rick , great video !
I remember reading a study that a computer programmer did about pop music, where he was able to calculate that the lyrics to popular music have been steadily increasing in repetitive-ness over time, to where today's music includes roughly twice the repetition that music from the 60s did. And that's just lyrics.
Also, he found that the most repetitive major artist over that time was Rihanna.
"Around the world", repeated 144 times by Daft Punk, might've skewed those results😂
“Why can’t we be friends”….
@@sharpvidtube Either that or 'All the single ladies...'
In this thread: All the people who'll tell you climate change isn't real because it was pretty cold where they were yesterday.
@@willmistretta says the guy who says it IS real because it is hot where he was this summer.
I rarely comment on RUclips videos but Ricks knowledge and genuine passion for teaching people as well as the love of creating the videos is overwhelming. He’s one of very few subscriptions where I watch all of this video from start to finish. Just wanted to say thank you for taking the effort and it really is appreciated.
Now the ask … Prince… talk to us. Pure inspiration of a musician / artist. Would love an episode on him from you.
I’ll be there and man in the mirror are my favorite Michael jackson(Jacksons) songs and now I know why, thank you Rick for always showing us why we love good songs
Boston's "Let me take you home tonight" starts in D and when it gets to the outro changes to E, and in the middle of said outro changes again to F#. And I can't stress enough how much those changes make the ending of the song (and album) so much powerful
It is a treat to experience a true craftsman at work and this is also for musicians. This is sadly so much rarer nowadays. It is like I miss the era when there was no shortcuts and true skill was required.
This video is worth GOLD -- Awesome Music Teaching Award for Rick Beato. When you teach while singing to, and playing parts of popular songs it's fun to watch and learn. Being able to put the keys up for us to see as they change is magical. This is the beauty of the internet because you couldn't do that nearly as smoothly and easily if you were teaching in person.
Lack of tonal change in the music is part of UN Agenda 21 and 30. I read that they want to make everyone depressed and they're targeting every industry to do it.
Hey Rick, I am a musical illiterate, but you just put down in keys my feeling about the last decades of music. I am 50, and a lifelong Genesis fan, but I have listened to and appreciated all kinds of music (EW&F, Weather Report, Santana, Madonna, Michael Jackson, you name it). I really do miss the richness and heart of the music in the last few decades. Thank you for your work, as always, much appreciated. If musicians like you are not around the net the day of tomorrow, who will teach the younger generations? 🤘🤘❤️❤️
Speaking of Genesis, nobody does original chords and key changes like Tony Banks!
That's the word - RICHNESS. And richness comes from depth and detail, often, complexity. Those take time, effort, study, and deep content knowledge. See a pattern ?
@@earlofmar11 He was/is the connector - they’d do bits -- MR is the bits guy - just to see if he could tie it together. He’s quite brilliant, and that I got intrinsically/intuitively before I understood, technically how he really did it - creative/smart guy; see why he was going to be an astrophysicist haha. What a band - chemistry of the 5 together and blending of their strengths as composers; how they put it all together and made it work should have its own genre. 😂Epic. Cheers.
every one is using the same computer software, plus auto tune, pitch correction, click to time etc etc, the aim has become homogenized perfection and that was never rock n roll. plus before you had studio's with guys that developed rooms, mixing desks and sounds over years, each studio was different, now its all digital, oh and nobody seems to be saying anything relevent to our lives anymore
@@michaelneary888neary7 yeah that's what really killed music --- too much reliance on digital technology and no heart and soul in music or lyrics anymore
It's a real shame key changes have gone away. They give a song so much more emotional power! I hope one day they'll come back, but I have a feeling I won't be around when they do. So glad I know where to find them in the songs of my generation, and maybe by sharing them (as you do @Rick Beato), they will catch on again!
Rick needs to do a video "The disappearance of music in modern music"
I am not a musician but I love music and I can truly appreciate your channel and your wisdom and expertise in music. I hear notes and melodies but its good to learn that there is so much to know how a song comes out or sounds like the way they do. More power to you!!!!
Some artists were known for their frequent use of modulation.
Stevie Wonder is a great example, my favourite is the song "For Your Love". It changes key no less than three times!
Other examples of him doing similar are in "Happy Birthday" "Knocks Me Off My Feet" "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" and "Shelter In The Rain" to name a few!
Summersoft.
My favorite example of modulation in Stevie Wonder is Golden Lady - just goes up and up. Great song from a fantastic album.
Here in Europe we are used to the key change in the end of a song, due to the Eurovision Song Contest, where we even talk about the Eurovision key change. But I have noticed that the Eurovision key change has become more rare.
Don’t forget Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love”, which modulates a fourth up at the end (from C major to F major). The limit of what’s possible in any given song is really just determined by the respective singer’s range. 😁
You could have just said: Don't forget Roxette. 🙂 There are soooooo many beautiful harmonic changes in their songs.
It changes 5 semitones?? No wonder I can never nailed those last reff
I'm not a musician (I played way back in high school), and I almost never comment, but I'm glad you did this. I think what I found most interesting about the article was the thesis of why this is happening. The author hypothesized (probably rightly) that songs are no longer written linearly (sitting down with a piano or guitar) and writing the song from beginning to end. Instead they are written vertically, using ProTools or some other audio software. Musicians and producers can take a riff or a drum beat and loop it in the software and they write the song with the various components, layering them on top of one another. It's interesting and kind of sad.
Agreed, though I would say it's interesting BUT sad.
Yeah writing vertically by pilling a load of parts onto an 8 bar loop and then spreading those parts out to make song. It can be great, but unfortunately money has removed much of anything else from the mainstream.
Some of my favourite music is harmonically static, but the fact that pop music is expected to be this way to be successful, is indeed very sad.
You forgot the many many different song writers on a single song who pick up where the last one left off creating ..flatness
@@gordonborsboom7460 And who, I suspect, iron out anything that's musically interesting - because along the line one of 'em's going to be an all-killer-no-filler minimalist, and cut out any key changes or unexpected chords.
The weird thing is, key changes are a LOT easier with this software than without. You can pretty much write everything in C major or A minor (or whatever mode) and then just push the whole section up or down. So I don't get why writing in software would cause this. I think it is more a rebellion against anything not purely related to rhythms.
It made me smile that it's not just me when it comes to "I'll Be There".... that song was pure magic, and still is.
So much stuff from the hyper-creative music world of the 60s-70s is being forgotten.
What always blows me away about that song is how effortlessly young Michael sings it as if he knows what it's written about. That guy never gets any credit as a singer, he was so expressive and soulful, even as a child, it's almost incomprehensible.
I'm not a musician, but I always loved the key change in the middle of To Know Him is To Love Him. It just encapsulates the anguish and frustration of a teenage girl not being able to understand why the boy she loves won't love her back.
I'm a musician, but sadly, an alcoholic.
I've created 40 or 50 songs, but not much lately. I'm half way there, and living on a prayer. I'd like to buy all your materials and use them..., but I probably wouldn't use them. I massively appreciate you though. You always inspire me, and help push me toward wanting to share more beauty with the world.♡
I hope you get rid of alcohol in your life, so you can live life to it’s fullest ❤️
You got this buddy. Alcohol is hard to kick. Weed helped me kick it
Alcohol shouldn't be used to get you through the day --- only use it as a reward for a long day of work --- I only sip a half glass of wine to unwind from a busy day
@@fredwerza3478 For an alcoholic i think one should get rid of alcohol as a reward in general. Maybe for anyone really. There are tons of ways to wind down without alcohol and its side effects on sleep and general physical and mental health
@@EirikHolan Well said. It's really a toxic reward system.
So true. Nearly every single song these days is melodically boring and monotonous. Reminds me of what Rick once said before in a stream about older music being a more "nutritious diet" of music compared to today's music. Though a select few songs of today are good in different ways even if they don't have key changes I guess, but they are so few.
Earth, Wind and Fire "After the Love Is Gone" is an entire song of modulation. I saw someone analyze it saying it's "a masterclass on the circle of fifths". They used interesting modulations toward the ends of some other songs, my favorite being "You Can't Hide Love".
I remember when that song came out. It felt a little too much like an exercise in music theory because of all the key changes.
Those songs, both of those tunes including Imagination, are all incredible tunes
david foster's and jay graydon's masterpiece. they won a grammy for it, these were the years of sophisticated jazzy pop songs, sad they're over, only stupid boring music for the people on the radio today. glad I was young in the 70ies and 80ies...
@@klausboenigk7937, who listens to the radio anymore? 😄
One of my favorite internal modulations is the bridge of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun". They set it up perfectly, because it doesn't happen after the first chorus, but then it does after the second. Very dramatic.
Ironically just listened to the new Vulfpeck tune "New Guru" where Antwaun Stanley calls out "lets take it up" so they modulate up, then after one line of the chorus says "my bad, bring that back down" so they return to the original key. Love it.
I'm 77, and recently started listening to 50's Oldies on Sirius for nostalgia's sake. As I listened to more and more songs, I became very aware of the key changes on so many of them. I even started listening for them. Mack the Knife had 5! I figured it was a way to make those songs more interesting.
The true casualties of “Mack The Knife” are the countless karaoke singers who _thought_ they know the song well!
"I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 is still one of my favorite songs from my childhood, and yeah, that beautiful modulation within the piece is a wonderfully lifting section.
One interesting example of a song using key changes is "Listen To Your Heart" by Roxette, which shifts up a key for the bridge, and then the chord progression in the bridge resolves into another shift up by one key for the final repetitions of the chorus. It is very well done.
Roxette are fantastic songwriters. I think there's something in the water in Sweden. Their recent cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" is fantastic.
@@ischmidt Per Gessle wrote most of the songs, though Marie Fredriksson was a great writer, she's got more credits on her solo work, than with Roxette (and her album "the change" is worth checking out and makes you wonder what Roxette could have done if the project used more of her writing). After her untimely death, Gessle continues to perform with a few other singers as PG Roxette (and that's what the Metallica tribute was).
@@simongunkel7457 Cheers, I didn't know all the "lore"! I'll check out Marie's album, her voice was always amazing.
@@ischmidt Check out Fredriksson's album _Den ständiga resan._ I bought this many years ago, don't even know where and when. The music is very different from Roxette but has a lot of very interesting songs; not usual fare but very worth seeking out!
@@ischmidt I always thought Roxette was the 2nd best musical act out of Sweden after ABBA --- Ace of Base seemed very forgettable
I think my favorite key change is Chicago's "Call On Me," coming out of the the horn solo. So slick and subtle you don't even notice it.
I still remember sitting down with my friend (pre-internet era) with our guitars in hand trying to figure out what the hell is that fascinating jump at the end of "I'll Be There For You" by Bon Jovi.
I always appreciate a key change in any song, no matter the genre. it gives you that sense of sweet surprise!
This deserves a "Part 2" from Rick. Would have been cool to a have heard some of the naff "truck drivers' key changes" trying to make a bad song from rolling all the way down the hill. A key change that works is subtle and as Rick demonstrates so beautifully,
The impressive key change in Living On A Prayer is all Desmond Child. He is basically famous for his interesting modulations. Try looking at the chord structure of songs like Alice Cooper's Poison and Michael Bolton's How Can We Be Lovers. You'll see that key changes mid-melody is a theme in his work.
Which is what makes those parts cheezy and formulaic. They could have at least changed up the lyrics for those parts.
This video is another great example of why your channel is so important for music lovers. You give us a different subject yet again and explain it perfectly. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada. 🇨🇦
Senators!
cool on Michael Jackson‘s „man in the mirror“ that the key change goes along with the lyric „change“ - pretty awesome!
2 great songs with modulations that come to mind:
1. Dreams - the Cranberries, in the bridge
2. Ooh Child - Five Stairsteps, in the chorus.
Very effective means of adding a lift or sparking interest in a new section.
Dreams is such a fabulous song! RIP Dolores!
I'm not that big into theory, but i remember very well the first time i've heard "After the Love Has Gone" from Earth, Wind & Fire. That must have been the most vivid musical experience i've ever heard. The way it is lifting up higher and higher throughout the song is just magical. My favorite song of all time!
Absolute banger
Man! I really wished Rick covered THAT massive hit!! The key changes towards the end are legendary!!!
The changes in that song are insane. EW&F and Zeppelin were my music college.
Yeah the vocals really make those key changes a special thing.
Yes! That song is what happens when you have Maurice White and David Foster in the booth at the same time!
So there's this really wild Brazilian song by Milton Nascimento (famous Brazilian singer/songwriter) called "Tanto", that in the last minute modulates in ascending half-steps like 10+ times! It's definitely a 70s song with 70s style production, but very powerful once you get into it - and Milton's voice is like that of an angel.
For like 20 years I knew Milton Nascimento only through "Cravo e canela", it was on some compilation disc friend gave me back in high school. Then the YT came, and boy, does he have an opus! I love Brazilian music.
When I started learning guitar (coming up on 47 years ago now, unbelievable) I really got into jazz guitar and jazz in general. In that genre a song modulating through 5 key changes is not unusual in any way nor does it sound weird - just interesting.
Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach are two other masters of the winding melodies.
I remember hearing the key change in You’re the inspiration the first time and thinking “Wow! That change really takes it to another level!” Without knowing anything about music, later on I learned it was pretty common on many hit songs.
Yeah! That song has like four key changes. That is unusual for a pop song.
I love that you mention Barry M. I think he is quite underappreciated (my mum and sister are big fans). His style is very 'showtunes' where keeping interest through a song is important. And he does it very well. Sadly mainstream music today seems lazy and vocally simple.
I grew up on Manilow music and I still have all of my mum's records from back in the day. I saw him in concert (my first) just after Copacabana hit the charts. What a time to be alive!
To this day, when my wife and I hear a key change, we refer to the song as "the Barry Manilow version."
The Carpenters were brilliant.
@Stephen Nester certain artist like Luther Vandross, Johnny Cash and Tom Jones don't need to write a song in order to project their being through the music and make it theirs.
@@jimstratton3389 My friends and I did that as well, because a key change in a Manilow song was so formulaic.
Great video Rick! I too lament the use of key changes in modern pop. I was listening to Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" the other day - First an internal modulation from a verse in G to chorus in Bb! Then the ultimate EPIC lift modulation to the last chorus in B!!
My favourite key changing song is Scott Walker's "The Seventh Seal". Almost every verse is half step higher. And wonderful Scott's voice and arrangements. Beautiful song.
Songs you have known for years, become more beautiful when Rick talks about them and explains how they have been build up.
It is like an art expert explains how a beautiful painting has been made and what details we should pay attention too.
perfectly explained
When I explain such things to my friends they say I'm destroying this music because songs are not beautiful any more when they know how they are built. Strange, isn't it?...
@@Astronom_ You need to change friends
You‘re so right. It‘s like being back in school, where the Book you read during your language course is really beginning to make Sense, After you‘ve discussed it and your teacher explained, what‘s written during the lines. Amazing!
His explanations are rudimentary and superficial. Key changes are just about the only thing he can see. Blind leading the blind.
Stevie Wonder' "Golden Lady" and "Superwoman" are two of my favorites Rick. If I'm hearing it correctly, I think he modulates up half a step twice on each song. Bill Withers jumps up a half key I think five times on "Harlem"!
The key change during the breakdown in the middle of "Birdland" by Maynard Ferguson is by far the nastiest key change I always think about. Right before the sax solo. Horns going crazy. So badass
The half step key change in "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers adds an intriguing spark that helps to refocus the listener's attention to the serious nature and meaning of this ballad ("Every gambler knows, that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away, and knowing what to keep").
Being from Brazil, I grew up with songs that would modulate several times as if nothing was even happening. But the current state of music is just not that interesting in general...good thing we have so many beautiful creations to quench our thirst at...and Rick to remind us to appreciate it all!
Man, you live in a country where the mainstream music is called "brazilian funk" which consists of ONE SINGLE NOTE !
@@experience5988 Yes, that's nowadays...have you ever heard anything Brazilian from the 60s, 70s, 80, 90s? You're just confirming what I've said: the poor state of current world music. Not only Brazil, everywhere!
You are stuck in the past, mano. Today sounds different than yesterday, and tomorrow will sound different than today.
@@experience5988 brazilian mainstream music is "Sertanejo Universitário".
"Funk Carioca" and it's subgenres are actually the creative trends in brazilian current music scene
The Beach Boys used key changes of all types in many of their songs. Four that come to mind are Surfer Girl, I Get Around, Dance Dance Dance and Don't Worry Baby. They made them sound so effortless.
The verses and choruses of the overlooked "Don't Back Down" are a half-step away from each other, rendering it hugely relistenable
Don't forget Good Vibrations, too.
I always liked the major third modulation in Jackie Blue by Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I get the feeling of the song really opening up as it enters the B part. (The A part always starts with the same line so it's the closest thing to a chorus, but it's pretty versey to me so we'll call the parts A and B). A Part: Ebm7 Abm7 into B Part: G C G C Dm7 Cmaj7.
I was waiting for a video that addressed this. In music, the most important things to me are key changes and harmonies. I listen for those always.
I'm a child of the 70's and 80's and grew up with the R&B heyday of the 90's--which explains my preference for key changes. The way you described key changes echoes my thoughts about them.
It's a way to give rising action-shifting gears or resolution-grand finale to a song, depending on where its located. Your video on Sergio Mendes "Never Gonna Let You Go" illusrates the rising action key change perfectly!
If you want a song past 2005 with a boatload of key changes, listen to Beyonce's "Love on Top." It's very obvious in its rising action but also acts as a resolution at the same time.
Thank you for covering the topic of key changes; it's one of the two most important features of a song to me.
Entirely too true in the vast majority of popular music. Lack of key changes or even time changes. As a consequence there is little to remember or come back to.
Thank you Rick for your efforts to continue music education and hopefully bring some life back into musical creativity.
Time changes are also very cool and natural. Computer aided music making has truly affected this.
@@carlaodacosta I like a song that tells a story. Modern pop only tells one story...
You know how hard it is to make a tempo change in a DAW? I don't even know how to do it. I just always leave the tempo at default 4/4.
@@matthewchunk3689I agree. It’s not just the chord changes and time signatures are boring now. There’s little soul to the lyrics and the melodies are as lame and blah as can get. There’s a handful of songs a year that have any level of depth and that is almost wishful thinking.
@@Boethius411 You all are only listening to the Top 100 so i am not suprised.
Another great vid, Rick! Your knowledge is amazing, but it is your passion and enthusiasm, coupled with your personality, that make you so watchable. You are a great teacher/presenter!
It is interesting that this realization is pervading the thought-space recently. A good friend and I were just having a conversation about this yesterday. Of course, I am not a musical expert, just a lover and consumer of music. It is NOT an evolution of music but instead the death of it. I am so glad that you addressed this fairly recent tragedy.
One key change that immediately comes to my mind, when thinking about lifts, is the final chorus in my heart will go on. It just makes that last chorus glorious.
@@wickedhouston5538 Your comment seems rather off topic, but yes. Drake will never sound like Pink Floyd. :D
@@wickedhouston5538 yes they do, but not everyone has the money to afford big equipment in the beginning. I see it as a big plus that youngins can start explore creating & making music with a minimal budget. According to your comment i feel like you have a problem with mainstream, sampled stuff. Drakes Music feels very well produced in my ears. Music is always evolving, and one day people will realize that the modern charts scheme is not really it anymore and will drift into a different style. I mean it has always been like that, but that is what makes music so interesting.
@@geninius3147 studying music theory is free dude
A band that experimented a lot with key changes in the 80s was Talk Talk. The mood changes they created are utterly sublime.
Finally someone who gives credit to them! Underrated group. RIP Mark Hollis.
Mark Hollis was a unrecognised genius, one of the absolute best but funnily the songs that made it to hits for the band were some of his least favourite ones. The colour of spring and Spirit of Eden are some of the best albums of the 80's.
I got to see Talk Talk open for Elvis Costello back then in our smallish area. The audience went nuts for Talk Talk and they had to come back for an encore song. Then again, we made Elvis come back to the stage three or four times. What a night. I still love the Talk Talk sound.
YES. Talk Talk is one of my favorite bands and this is one of the many reasons why.
I only noticed the other day that China Girl by Bowie -a song I have been familiar with for fiorty years and have thought a good deal about - makes a key change from major to brooding minor at a critical point about two minutes in, and how this is part of the expressive fabric of the track:. It works together with changes in his vocals and the rhythm section to suggest an inexorable pull by outside forces on the lovers in the song, the sense that they are trapped by forces beyond their control.
I'm from Sweden, where this kind of unobtrusive major-to-minor shift is found all over the place in folk music, so I guess I'm so used to this device that it went under the radar with me in Bowie. :)
Great episode! My only complaint was that it was too short. The first 45's my parents let me buy in the store (Jamesway in upstate NY) when I was an early teen was Mandy by Barry Manilow and Close to You The Carpenters (I still love both songs).
Two songs dripping with melody and emotion and beautifully sung. My goodness! Barry sent her away! What was he thinking?
One of the most awesomes key changes that I've heard in my life is Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming, by Deep Purple. That final solo keep changing the key until ends in Dm (the main key of the song). Absolutely fantastic!
Indeed! That's a fantastic solo. Even though it sounds like Steve Morse plays variations of the same pattern throughout, he comes up with a twist almost every four bars. And he never noodles!
I think it's mainly due to the popularity of Hip Hop or the crossovers between Hip Hop and Pop.
Also, back in time lyrics and music were written at the same time, it was a story, nowadays instrumentals get made up front and then artists try to come up with something.
Absolutely! Modulation is a key factor in the "surprise" element that is so crucial as a music listener. I have learned a little bit about it, and used some modulations in my band´s songs and it is really a big and beautiful thing to add. It is sad to hear that they are kind of disappearing in modern music. Why is that? Current pop music just going for huge choruses and that´s all? Shame on pop music. As musicians and music lovers and listeners, modulations will live forever. Great video, Rick.
While Ric reacts on the modulation with wide eyes and pointing to the air saying with his brain "hear that?" I am equally amazed. His musical knowledge is incredibly amazing. You are a great teacher, Sir and you have my greatest R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Something I don't hear often enough in good music is the number of unique parts to the song. I've found that it takes at least four unique parts - intro, verse, chorus, solo, bridge, outro, etc. - to make a great song. A lot of the top songs I'm hearing nowadays have maybe 3 elements but normally 2
Good music has to keep changing to remain interesting, even if just a little bit. So much modern music has so little change, even if I can enjoy the beat for ten seconds, what else ya got for me??
Rick, you really should do a full video on Manilow. The guy is such a songwriter’s songwriter. I’ve ever performed much of anything in his style, but his live album (on 8-track) was one of those critical encounters that shaped my relationship with music.
Without knowing it was a key change, I always loved it when they start singing higher at some point in the song like you showed in Living on a Prayer or Every Breathe You Take. It adds intensity to the song.
She's Gone by Hall and Oates is another example where it modulates up four half steps before the end of the song. By the way, unconventional or "weird" changes have the element of surprise that so much popular promoted music these days lacks.
But is that "element of surprise" needed in a hit song? It might not be. In fact, it might be a detriment to big-time popularity - more likely to make the average listener think "what the f#$% is this!?" and turn the dial.
@@Baribrotzer , but it might the exact problem, that all the mainstrem music nowadays are "designed". It's made by people that are to well educated. Written by people that have learned all the theory and read all the analyses on what's makes a hit, so the result is all new songs sound formulaic and fairly similar. Even the modern production sounds formulaic, because all producers have learned the exact same tricks to get the same now "popular" sound. We are missing the "amateurs" that did stuff only because they they tought it sounded cool, but couldn't analyse music like Rick do here. Like Kurt Cobain had as far as I know minimal knowledge on what he did, he couldn't tell you what chords he was playing .. and his songs became hits.
@@westmus It's also a matter of the tools they're using.
Most pop musicians today use laptops - on which it's idiotically easy to repeat something a hundred times, layer other stuff on top of it, then bring that other stuff in and out to create a verse and chorus. Kurt used a guitar, on which you're more likely to think, "now where does this want to go? (tries chord) Not here, that's boring. (tries another chord) not there, that's weird and sounds random. (tries yet another chord) Yes! That's right!" And if that happens to be E although the rest of the song is in D minor, then that's what it happens to do.
@@westmus Addendum: Kurt may not have known any formal theory. But I would guess that he knew a bunch of songs, and from learning and playing those those he knew how chords worked. A number of rock guys are like that: They don't know what the parts of their musical vocabulary are called, but they know how they sound and how they work.
Great to go over some examples of key changes, but would have loved Beato to have engaged with the underlying reasons for _why_ the pattern is vanishing in modern music. The source article talks about this at some length, esp. w/r/t to how digital recording software encourages people to write by assembling parts together in a copy-paste method, writing vertically rather than linearly.
I was dreaming and in my dream i was watching: *The Jonny Greenwood Interview*
Dream come true
Hopefully
Lol imagine
Stevie Wonder has a lot of modulations in his songs, like “Summer Soft” that is included in the masterpiece “Songs in a Key of Life”
Another Stevie song with a sublime key change is “As”. At the line: Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream.
That ending when he just keeps lifting up the tone hits me every time I listen to this song
@@markanson-cartwright9705 there isn’t any key change in ‘As’
I was thinking of the song Golden Lady by Stevie Wonder, I love it for the key change ! 💛
@@pandorajodara Stevie Wonder has great key changes, he's one of the best that have done it
These are all great examples and I love every one of them. But my favorite remains " we've only just begun" written by Paul Williams. How does he fit all those amazing impossible key changes in and makes them sound effortless. Pure genius!
Another use of key change is to avoid repetition fatigue, e.g. in a storytelling ballad with 10 verses. About half-way thru, you up a 1/2 tone. It helps intensify story drama.
I think my favorite song that features a prominent key change is Sting “If I ever lose my faith in you.”
Key changes were still fairly common in the 90s. Another fun example was Enya “Orinoco Flow.”
That is the first song I remember, ‘sail away’ was around in the 80s on top of the pops and remember being in a chair and it was on the colour TV and soothed me to sleep.
@@AlistairEwingforensic-services- yup I was super young when it came out. I remember hearing it on the radio and falling in love with it.
I enjoyed this episode. I came here after listening to the Pretenders "I'll Stand By You". I love the key changes in there!
Rick, we are the same age and it is uncanny how we love the same songs! Thank you for validating my feelings about the loss of good music. (I'll Be There" is one of my favorites too) I wonder, will deeply melodic music ever return?
Return to the mainstream? Maybe not, but music exists below the surface and you'll find the best things there