Hearing that Turtles game music intro made me have flashbacks of going through the map, and ofcourse getting annihilated when I got to the underwater level with the shocking coral or whatever it was. I was just talking to people at work about how old video games were way more difficult than current games, like that hovering jetski level on Battletoads.
Don't forget the Metallica modulation. They do it in so many songs. Just move up a full step. Usually E minor to F# minor (and usually just for a pre-chorus)
One of my favorite key changes is in Queen’s “The Show Must Go On”. The key shifts up at the beginning of the 2nd verse and it gives a feeling of hope, but later in that same verse, the key shifts back down and that feeling of hope is gone…
I love the way you teach bro Always have! Question when the key changes happen ,Do they start on the root chord .. or are there any songs that start on the 2 chord. Like a 2-4-6 progression? Just curious.
@@satchrules101 thanks dude! Yes, there’s are tons of songs that don’t start on the 1! Learning to Fly by Tom Petty is in C, but starts on the IV (FM). Happens all the time!
The half step up key change in the last chorus is hugely popular in pop music. It adds to the energy of that last chorus. At this point, it should be considered traditional. Pitch-Axis would be a cool one to cover. As if any of us need an excuse to study more Satch.
As a side note, learn the Nashville Number's System and you'll never be F-ed in the studio or live when a singer or producer wants to change the key of the song on the fly. This will also help familiarize with the intervals discussed in this lesson.
Wow, Ben! I have to say, I've always heard about "borrowing a chord," but never really knew how the hell that was accomplished. Now, I GET it!!! Add to that the idea of key changes the way you explained them makes this so much more digestible. Thank you for so much great content over the years!!!
My uneducated rock guitarist view of Freebird, is to see the F as a chorded up bluesy minor third interjected in the shift from G ionian (plainer, more vanilla diatonic, classical, more melancholy) to D mixolydian, which tends to be used as the 'bluesier' version of the major scale and suddenly turns it into rock. It gives it an interesting duality of character, that's echoed in the shift to the straight up rocking second half.
Another great lesson, thank you! Will definitely check out the 'Rock With You' video as well. Saw that Adam Neely video you mentioned "the most elegant key change in pop music". It really is, I forget the music term for it. But by far THE most complex set of modulations in 80's Pop (when Pop musicians and producers were A tier) is "Never Gonna Let You Go" by Sergio Mendez. Rick Beato did a great analysis of it on his channel.
Awesome video. I learned something and laughed a few times. I think my favorite key change is the change in “To live is to die” from F# Phrygian (yes I know modes 😎) to A minor. So emotional. Also I like the key change in almost every Iron Maiden guitar solo section.
Wanted to say thank you 👍 I’m a adult learner that started 2 years ago and while I primarily am interested in blues/classic rock I get the most from your Chanel out of a plethora of other RU-vid channels. Great teacher and great sense of humor!
Great video(as always). There's one video by Rick Beato where he talks about this crazy song he had to perform back in the day. It's titled "The most complex song" or something. That could be a good example too!
@BenEller I started writing something in E Minor and then I borrowed some chords from E harmonic minor that also shared chords with E major and I modulated into E major from E minor. So how I transitioned it right before I change keys was I started the section with an embellished A, then from there I went to D major, then I threw in a borrowed D# diminished right before going into E major
I’ve seen a number of videos about the cycle of fifths, read stuff online, read book excerpts. I’ve never had trouble understanding shifting an interval but no one bothered to explain why or how to use it in a song. This video did that perfectly with examples like Freebird. I’ve known for a while now I could drop an F chord into a song in G. Now I know why. Thanks, Uncle Ben!
It’s also common for songs in minor keys to borrow the parallel major chord, for example playing an E minor progression like Em-Bm-Am-D and then something like Em-Bm-C-E major Edit: A key change in a popular song which I find very interesting and unique is the one in “Pretty Woman”, it goes from A major to C major (and the back to A major) and it somehow works perfectly
I was predicting what example you'd use for the abrupt keychange, and thought "ah, I know Uncle Ben well, he is going to show "The Drapery Falls" for sure......
Dude, please more of this sort of content - circle of 5ths etc...I am having such a hard time wrapping my head around basic theory, even though I've been playing for over 25 years and I consider myself not too dumb usually. The way you explain it makes sense. The other videos I watch are so full of jargon that my eyes glaze over.
I'm trying to learn to compose as I learn more chops, and this is exactly the information I'm looking for, but I'm a little new to theory as of maybe 2020.... so I'll probably have to watch this a few times
I swear that the moment you started giving examples I inmediately thought of Free Bird and Livin on a prayer, the first one being so smooth and the second being so "pop-style" change by going 1, 2 or (in this case) 3 semitones up. Nice video, uncle!
I'll watch this one later today. I understand that "Key" refers to the tonal center of a song but I don't what the heck I am saying when I say that, LOL. Hopefully this video will help me out.
Thank you so much Uncle Ben, Once again you have opened my eyes and helped me immensely thank you so much dude for making me more better,. Yu are a fantastic teacher👍
Really great review! Glad you mentioned the Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, and especially the Adam Neely video. His analysis is great, but the Indian harmony info is really the special sauce there IMHO. When I mentioned that modulation to a friend a few months ago, he whipped out some Beethoven and showed me the same 'exact' one, to the note Rachmaninoff used (Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, ) and Eric Carmen ripped into All By Myself. Good composers borrow, great composers steal! :)
Very useful! The Mixolydian mode is all over these rockers, too. Get that flat 7 in there. For example, key of G, include and F chord and you can key change to C. It's just another useful way of thinking about it imo. I also have a sneaky suspicion that classic rockers didn't like or know how to deal with diminished or m7b5 chords. Screw it! Mixolydian!
Great video, but worth signing up with Patreon just for the extended version (never mind all the other additional resources, and being able to thank Ben for his amazing free content)
That is one really informational video. Sick! Bon Jovi has some really nice key changes, It's My Life is a great example of that :D Have a good day Ben!
Cheers Ben, I thought I had grasped most of the different ways the circle of fifth/fourths worked but despite knowing the further away you go from the original tonic the more dissonant the change becomes, I don't recall ever finding a RU-vid vid explaining it that had mentioned each step only alters 1 note in the scale.. That's an amazing thing to know! 😊 I'm guessing it's just the 7th changes in the new scale if you are moving up a 5th, or the 7th of the original scale changes down if you move down a 5th. Simple... ...until you want to move quickly up 2 steps, or more scary, if you want to just alter the chords in one key to the key a 5th up, then which original triad chords stay the same and which will need adjusting in the song (guessing the 3rd chord of the original key will have a different 5th and the 5th chord has a different 3rd note)? .. And then you get to altering the 7th chords.. Eek! Maybe you could do a video on all of this sort of stuff?
Cool lesson! It always blows my mind when I notice either a borrowed chord or a full blown key change in a song. 90% of the time I get blown away by a cool chord move its some form of fun borrowed chord move. Its something thats I struggle using in a cool, intentional way but one that I'd love to master. It's not the same thing, but personally I find things like mode mixture to be much easier to get my hands around at least for borrowing "out-of-key chords". Its definitely cheating since you keep the tonic the same, but it still shuffles the notes around (and even still moves up and down the circle of fifths). And, at least personally, its a nice shortcut to know how the chord I'm borrowing will sound in the song based on the mode I moved to (e.g. did I go to a brighter or darker mode) and the chords relation to the tonic in that mode. Would definitely like to get better at doing full blown key changes though.
Thanks for the great video really informative. Tidbit of information about English as a language. English is one of the few languages that borrows words from other languages and largely keeps their pronunciations and meanings. Take loan words from Japanese; sushi, ramen, sake etc… I feel like borrowed chords fit this analogy really well. Japanese on the other hand doesn’t do this at all because their language is syllabic instead of alphabetic and there are entire sounds in English that don’t exist as distinct sounds in Japanese. For example there is no difference between /r/ and /l/ in Japanese, but there is in English. They have a whole writing system, katakana, which is used to represent foreign loan words. For example “woman” would written and pronounced as “u-man”. Love the video Ben.
Question: For "Free Bird" and "Living on a Prayer" couldn't one say that the key change is borrowed from the "Parallel Minor"? Because they are in G major, so the parallel minor is G minor. G minor is also the relative minor of Bb. So the use of an F chord in "Free Bird" and the change from G to Bb in "Living on a Prayer" could be explained by the parallel G minor key. No?
Another great song with a classic key change would be with Pink Floyd on Comfortably Numb, as the verse (sung by Roger Waters) is in B minor and then when Gilmour comes in on the chorus it goes up to D, which is the relative major of B minor but still works perfectly given the context of the song and its lyrics at that point. Alternatively, X Japan (great Japanese hard rock/metal band, highly recommend checking them out if you never heard of them. Absolutely amazing) has a bunch of really cool key change on their song Endless Rain (my personal favourite song by them), the verses and choruses of the song are in B (they tune down a half step so it'd be like C major for them) and modulate to E for the pre-chorus, but the biggest examples of key changes in that song are the bridge that goes up to G and then finally D for the solo before coming back to B for the final verse and outro chorus. Absolutely masterful songwriting
I've always loved modulations. tyranny by firewind and nemesis by arch enemy key change a whole step up at the last chorus. also down here in Texas we have a genre called Tejano/conjunto and they use modulation quite a bit.
as always ben master of music all music wish I learned to do that when i was younger 46 now lol but blues to metal then I went to learning classical and finger picking but lost the use of right hand fingers told ya about it before now my hand fingers are coming back to life thank god but im trying to learn as much as i can always for my self since my mom died years ago i play to challenge my self and cause music is beautiful
The All by Myself key change is from a classical piece. I think Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto. And we know some cheesey guy in the 70's did it before Celine Dionne re-did it years later.
When telling a joke. The voices, the emphasis, the pause before the punch line. Duck walks into a pharmacy. Tells the pharmacist in a mine voice "I want some chapstick!" Pharmacist looks down at the duck and leans in with bulging eyes, A....: How you plan to pay for it ya snapper head!" Duck says proudly, "Put It On My Bill!"
A good example (and someone please correct me if im wrong) is in Everybody hurts by REM. The verse is in the key of D however when it switches to the chorus a lot of emphasis is put on the E minor chord which is the ii chord of D major. Effectively modulating us into the relative dorian key. Not sure if thats strictly a key change but it definitely makes the listener feel another chord as home base for a minute
Two cool examples are the Red Hot Chili Peppers songs under the bridge and soul to squeeze, both have intros that are in a different key then the rest of the song. John Mayer’s only heart also has one of my favorite key changes.
Hi Ben, how are you? My question is about squeels and then mainly squeeling chords a la Zakk Wylde. On the Ozzy album No Rest for the Wicked you can hear Zakk play chords that are half open half squeel. I think you know what I mean. It was very popular to do so back then. But also quite hard to play it right to find the sweet spot. And my question also applies to single note squeels. It is a sound that is between normal open and squeel sound. I think pick choice and distortion sound also can make a difference to get it right and perhaps also the angle of the pick. Can you help us out? 🙏
If you don’t read music and you don’t even know what key you’re in now what but you have a great chord progression you created and you want to modulate and then come back to the original chord progression
When I call you baby! ...Woah how'd i get here , I don't want to talk about it ...Anymore....:D) Great Lesson Just play around with the fifths and the gates will open!
Yup Yup Cool stuff Boss,, thanks for your hard work putting this up. Worst key change was when my mean girlfriend changed the locks of our apartment, And wouldn't give me a new key. A real heartbreaker😂
