Heroic Key Changes!

So I had a few people (technically true, it was more than one person!) asking me about the key changes and strange chords in the track I shared last Friday, so I thought I'd make a (not so) quick update on some of the ways I change keys in my music.

In case you missed the track, here it is:
Heroic Mockup by ryanleber

Now, it all starts with a very simple progression. It begins on an A minor chord, and moves to an F major chord. In the key of C major, that's vi (the A minor) and IV (the F major). This is an extremely common progression, you hear it all the time. What you don't hear all the time is where it goes next. It returns to the A minor (iv) and then there's a really bizarre chord (contextually speaking), an Eb major (right at an0va's first comment). There is no Eb major chord in the key of C major. So how did I end up here?

Well, the solution lies in the melody (the male choir), which goes like this:

So as you can see, the melody is in two halves, which more or less repeat. While over the A minor chord (labeled Am, above), the melody plays the notes A, E, D, and G. Now, all of those notes (except for D, D's a little dissonant, but whatever) fit very well over an A minor chord. When it switches to F major (labeled F, above), it sticks on that G, and then moves down to C. Again, both are notes which work very well over the F major chord. Now, on the second pass, I repeat everything verbatim over the Am chord, and again stick with the G in the melody at the next chord, but this time the chord is an Eb major chord (labeled Eb, above).

So, why does this work? Because there's a G in an Eb major chord! How is an Eb major chord spelled? With the notes Eb, G, and Bb! So G fits perfectly over the Eb major chord. Once we're on this Eb major chord, I simply treat it as the IV in the new key, which is Bb major. IV (Eb major) goes to V (F major) goes to G minor (vi), which is where all the more rapid chord changes happen. At this point, the new key is well-established, and what follows is just standard chord changes in that new key, nothing special.

If I had to give this technique some kind of name, I'd call it an "expected melody pivot," or something like that. Because after hearing the melody once, we know that G at the end is coming, That G in the melody can be applied to various chords, so I then use that G as a pivot point to work myself in to a strange out-of-key chord, and then in to a new key where the out-of-key chord makes more sense (moving out of C major, and in the Bb major, in this case).

[UNNECESSARY EXPLANATION:] If you're wondering why I chose to explain this in major keys, choosing C major instead of A minor, and Bb major instead of G minor, it's because of the progression that is used. If it was V - i in a minor key, then yeah, I'd explain it in a minor key, but it's not. It's IV V vi, which is VI VII i in minor keys, and that just looks weird. It's a personal preference, and I'm sure if anyone was wondering, they weren't confused by it. If you're confused now that you've read this paragraph, though, don't worry about it. You don't really need to understand the roman numerals to get what I did to change keys.

Well, I hope that sheds some light on what I did. Stay tuned for a new track on Friday (sad music!) and another compositional breakdown next Monday (again, sad music!). Also, be on the lookout for more serious music theory posts in the future, from basic stuff like diatonic theory (i.e. those roman numerals I was using) to more crazy stuff like other ways to switch in and out of different keys. So yeah! Tell your friends, keep up to date using the links to the right, and, uh, have a wonderful Wednesday! Thanks for reading!