- Ever listen to Stevie Wonder and think, "How does he do that?" ♪ I'm too high, I'm too high ♪ ♪ But I ain't touched the sky ♪ - That's effortless modulation. And in this video, we're gonna give you the five levels of Stevie Wonder's harmonic genius. So what is effortless modulation? Well, it's not the big lift at
the end of the power ballad. ♪ And I ♪ - It's also not the fast moving tour de force John Coltrane,
"Giant Steps" vibe. (saxophone playing) It's these beautiful harmonic journeys Stevie takes us on. You start in one place,
you end up somewhere else. You don't know how you got there, but we're enjoying the ride. (chord playing) Stevie wonder was just 16 years old when he composed "My Cherie Amour," but he was already a
master of harmony and form. Check out how quickly he
modulates, how effortless it is. Just one little step
down. Let's check it out. ("My Cherie Amour" playing) That's the intro. He doesn't even start on the
tonic. There's the tonic. It's in the key of D flat. Starts on the 4. Then up to B major. And then to the 1. And here's the verse. Starts on the 1. Then where's he go? Agh! Check it out again! ♪ My cherie amour ♪ ♪ Distant as the milky way ♪ He's just steppin' down, D
flat major to B major, right? But there's one core, the sus chord, G flat sus that takes you there. So that seems really simple, that's a difficult modulation to pull off because you got D flat major
that's five flats to B major, that's five sharps. So that's effortless when
you can just shift like that. (melodic piano music) But the melody, linked
in with that sus chord, that bridge chord, (piano chords playing) and then back to the 5,
with a sus, back to the 1. (piano chords playing) But it's just slick the way,
effortless, the way he does it. G flat, you might want to think about that as like an E over over G flat, and then it takes you to the B major, I guess it's really C,
C flat major, whatever. ("My Cherie Amour" continues) Down to the 4. Open it up. 5 sus. B 13 sharp 11. B flat sus. 2. 2 dominant. 5 sus. Flat 9. D flat major. Take a little step down, right? Little effortless modulation. B flat. B major. 5. 4. 5 sus. B 13 sharp 11. B flat 7 flat 9. E flat 7 sharp 11. A flat sus. Back to the intro. 4. Effortless modulation. (ukulele chords playing) So we learned about an easy, effortless, modulation down a whole step. Now we're gonna go a little
bit further with "Overjoyed." We're gonna go down a minor third. Okay? So see if you can hear the modulation, once it gets into the verse. ("Overjoyed" playing) 6. C minor 11. 2, F minor, 5. 1, 6, 2, 5, simple stuff. Beautiful lyric. Beautiful melody. Woah. Said, where are we going? He's gone much too far. He
hasn't gone much too far. He's just going from E flat
down a minor third to C major, but that is kind of far right? (piano scale playing) E flat major, 3 flats to C major. (piano scale playing) That's pretty different. That's not like going
from E flat to A flat, E flat to C major. Now,
how does he get there? Let's jump back. ♪ And rewind it back. ♪ Rewind it back. ("Overjoyed" continues) E flat. Two chords here, to get to C major. What are they? F2, or F over A. F2 over A. To G2 over B. Then you're at C major,
what a great way to go, because you could go E flat major. But what do you like better that or, (piano melody playing) And it's so it's such a great
root movement because you're (man vocalizing) you're going up. Tritone, up a whole step, up a half step. Great voice leading ("Overjoyed" continues) C major. And then back to G over B. Now back to C minor. To F7, F minor, to B
flat, back to the top. 1, 6, 2, 5 sus. 1, 6. F over A. C major. That's how you do it. ♪ This is how we do it. ♪ E flat to C, effortless modulation. (ukulele chords playing) Alright, now we know how
to go down a minor third when we modulate, how about we go down a major third? Let's check out "I Can't Help It." Now, A lot of folks think this is a Michael Jackson tune. 'Cause he had a big hit with it, actually composed by Stevie Wonder. Let's check it out. ("I Can't Help It" playing) Intro. Key of A flat. Nice strings. And here's the melody. Alright, we gotta talk
about this intro again. I know we're not even
into the real modulation, but what is this? It's in A flat but it starts on A 13 sharp 11. (piano chords playing) And then to A flat major. It's basically, you can think about this as like a 5 to 1, 5 to
1, like a typical intro. But with that baseline, so slick. So it's like that's an E flat 13. No, E flat, flat 13 sharp 9 over A. (piano melody playing) And the melodies down in the baseline. Let's check out the melody. ("I Can't Help It" continues) Now remember we're going to be going down a major third. F minor, to 2 B flat. 4, 5. What? Hold on. We gotta
check that out again. What? Relative minor, F minor.
Then to B flat, 2 chord. 4 minor D flat. Alright, that's a quick little modulation at the end of that A section, right? So we got E major, 'cause we're going from A flat major to E major. The last one we went down a minor third. Now we're goin' down a major third, another tough place to go. You're going from A flat, a flat key to a sharp key. (piano scale playing) And there's some foreshadowing in here. 'Cause remember the melody. ♪ Looking In the mirror ♪ What is that melody? (piano melody playing) Stevie's playing 4-dimensional chess. He's already at the E major at the very beginning of the melody. All that's within E major. (piano melody playing) Four. Now we're all there. Stevie's like 17 steps ahead of us. ("I Can't Help It" continues) Second A. ♪ Sensual disguise ♪ ♪ I can't help but love you ♪ ♪ It's getting better all the time ♪ Ah, this time he doesn't go to the E. that's a great structural thing. Part of effortless modulation
is knowing when to do it. Knowing when not to do it, a little bit of pulling the rug out from under us. flat 13 to the 1, as opposed to (piano melody playing) first, second, ending,
first ending, second ending, slick stuff, effortless modulation. (ukulele chords playing) You know how they say you
can't be in two places at once? ♪ I wanna ♪ ♪ two places at the same time. ♪ Well, Stevie wonder says you can. Let's check out his dual tonality on "Send One Your Love," from the great album
"Secret Life Of Plants." ("Send One Your Love" playing) That's 5 tonalities
already. Let's do it again. B flat major. A flat major. B flat major. We're just going up step wise,
whole steps, now C major. And then slide down to B major. That's so genius, because if
you were a good enough composer to even to get that far. (man vocalizing) A flat, B flat, C major, I would've just stopped there and been really happy with
myself, to tell you the truth. (crowd applauding) But Stevie goes (man vocalizing) the slag style to what's
gonna be the tonic, right? And then do it again. Cause twice is twice as nice. But how are we getting between these? 'Cause it's not just. (piano melody playing) ("Send One Your Love" continues) Moved a little bit. Remember we said you're at
two different places at once. When you go on the Stevie Wonder DeLorean. - Look out! (electricity zapping) (tires squealing) - It's like a B over A kind of, but we know we're in B, right? Might be something like that. (man vocalizing) so it's like an A lydian situation. We're really in B major and we're in A. We don't even know what the
tonic is. We don't care. Stevie's got us. And then so many people play this. That's not right, it's A major, E flat minor 6, and then G major. The melodic movement of
the root is so spot on and so brilliant. That's what connects it. 'Cause this stuff shouldn't work. (piano melody playing) And the melody is so strong,
G major and then F sharp, flat 13 sharp 9, and then D minor 9, and then G major. Then we get to A major. We actually are in A, the
tune's in A, it's not in B, but then the second A goes right back to. (piano melody playing) It sounds like it's in B 'cause of that. (piano melody playing) He's messin' with us. - I got my license, - Really? You've got your license? - And then this is so brilliant. They, some people talking
about the backdoor, 2, 5, 1. This is so far beyond that. D minor 7, to G major, to A major. (piano melody playing) And the bridge, just goes to the 4. ("Send One Your Love" continues) D minor. G major 7. A major. Okay, so now we're not modulating, the bridge is kind of, goes to a standard, and he kind of plays to the 4, but it's got this great
E flat 13 sharp 11. Ah let's let- ("Send One Your Love" continues) Effortless modulation. (ukulele chords playing) Alright, we're up to number 5, our final effortless modulation. But we got a little fake out for you. 'Cause we've got a lot of stuff happening that seems like it's
modulations, and it's not really. Once we get to the modulation,
it's actually very simple, minor to major. Let's check it out, "Too
High" from Innervisions. ("Too High" playing) A minor, three times. Base melodic pattern. These are all 2nd inversion triads. Moving down chromatically with a different pattern than
it's going to do next time. Back to A minor, just two times this time. (piano and song playing melodies) Little subtle thing there, right? ♪ I'm too high ♪ ♪ Too high ♪ ♪ But I ain't touched the sky ♪ What is that? What's happening there? ♪ Too high ♪ ♪ Stayed on ♪ (man vocalizing) So this is all over, of
course, this E, the 5, but before he gets back to here. (piano melody playing) There's this whole step
movement, whole tone movement, but it leads so beautifully. So let's check it out. What is that? That's actually D7, sharp 9, flat 13 over E. Actually, that's McCoy Tyner left-handed voicing that Stevie's using. (piano melody playing) But this is D7 sharp 9 and
then down a whole step, C7 sharp, 9 flat 13, B flat 7, sharp 9, flat 13, same, A flat, F sharp. And then the final one E7 flat 13 sharp 9, which leads so nicely to here, back to that A minor with that
great melodic base pattern. Check it out, he does it again. ("Too High" continues) Great, now A minor through, Alright, what's he doing there? Remember we talked about the real, this is the effortless
modulation comin' up here. That was just a bunch
of hip ass fancy stuff, (piano melody playing) But this is the effortless
modulation, A minor. (man vocalizing) A minor. (man vocalizing) What does that sound like? (piano melody playing) A major. That's very hard to just go from A minor to A major,
but how does he do it? He's going down to C sharp
minor, F sharp minor. And then it's like a E
13 sus or a D over E, whatever you want to call it,
and then back to the A minor. So he's borrowing a couple of chords that are closely associated with A major, not A minor, C sharp
minor, and F sharp minor. F sharp minor is the relative
minor of the A major. So it gives it that major
sound plus the melody. (piano melody playing) Minor, and then, (piano melody playing) So it goes from minor to major, ♪ Minor to major ♪ (man vocalizing and playing piano) And then he does it again. ("Too High" continues) And then here. E sus. C 13 sus 4. E flat 13 sharp 11. Me likey. Woo tension. Back, McCoy Tyner. ♪ I'm too high ♪ ♪ Too high ♪ ♪ I hope I never ever come down ♪ Let's check it out again. Bossa nova, A major. Maybe I could slide it in a little bit. A major, A minor to A major. E sus, D over E. B flat over C. E flat 13 sharp 11. Stevie wonder. Thank you so much. Effortless modulation. Peace and piano. ♪ If it's magic ♪ ♪ Then why can't it be everlasting ♪ ♪ Like the sun that always shined ♪
