The most elegant key change in all of pop music

on february 23rd 2016 celine dion gave a  performance of her classic power ballad   all by myself to a packed room at caesar's palace  in las vegas she sang the climactic high e flat   on the word anymore when the key changes up a  diminished fourth from g major to c flat major   and the crowd went wild but there was something  there's something in the music that was just   too much and celine had to stop singing this  moment i feel perfectly encapsulates music's   narrative role its ability to tell a story in a  way that makes you feel it on a physical level and   the way that all by myself does this is through  a very clever key change it's an example of   modal mixture common tone and harmonic double  chromatic mediant modulation and don't worry   we're going to spend today parsing that jargon  dump but just because western music theory can   throw a lot of words at a moment doesn't mean that  we really get into the emotional resonance of it   so if we're going to understand what happened  on that stage in february of 2016 we're going   to need to go a little deeper we're going to  need to go deeper if we're going to understand   the greatest key change in pop music this  video is brought to you by curiosity stream and   nebula where you can watch the  extended version of this video live the song all by myself was written and composed by  the former front man of the raspberries the singer   eric carmen who wrote the song's verses based on  the second movement of rachmaninoff's second piano   concerto he wrote the verses this way thinking  that rachmaninoff's music was in the public domain   but turns out it wasn't so he was forced to give  rachmaninoff's a state writing credit on the song   which technically means that all by myself is the  russian composer and pianist sergey rachmaninoff's   best-selling hit single when celine dion sings  all by myself live she generally sings it in   the key of g major which is a fairly bright sound  all things considered however there is harmony in   the song which is borrowed from the parallel  minor g minor which is a fairly dark sound   when you go back and forth between major and minor  light and dark you call that modal mixture which   is the first part of the jargon that we mentioned  earlier now there's one note in particular that   does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to  modal mixture and that is this bad boy right here   the flat six e flat when you take harmony from  dark g minor that features the e flat like a minor   seven flat five and c minor and you resolve those  dark sounds to a bright g major you get a chord   progression which has this powerfully wistful  quality to it the harmony seems to be culturally   coded to feelings of bitter sweetness and the  past likely because of its use and cadences   from american musical theater and tin pen alley  songs from the early half of the 20th century   since these popular songs have primarily lived  on in popular culture through christmas music   this harmony has a certain meme connotation  but for right now we're going to call it   the nostalgia note the flat 6 is the nostalgia  note nostalgia now if we take a look at the   versus lyrics we see that they pair very nicely  with this bittersweet affect that we have come   to associate with these kinds of chords in  major keys the phrasing of these lyrics is   a little unusual though in that they are paired  with an asymmetrical five bar verse pattern the   first of these phrases is a short statement  on the note b the third note of g major the second phrase is a slight elaboration  also ending on the note b but now paired   with one of those bittersweet chords a minor  7 flat 5 over g which features the e flat the third phrase is the variation on the second  phrase except this time we end on the note a   it's also been displaced by a beat giving  the melody more of a conversational bent   this leads to the final phrase which uh ends  on the note g those things are gone the target   tones of each phrase spell out b a g three two one  three blind mice it's a very shankarian melody if   that's your thing but i think it's more important  to note the asymmetrical conversational phrasing   of the rhythm and also the fact that it's  all paired with this nostalgic harmony   nostalgia the end of every verse  has this fantastic piano counter   melody which is like a secondary  melody that supports the main melody   which carmen borrowed directly from the second  movement of rachmaninoff's second piano concerto this counter melody ends on just like the  most delightful ritardando like a slowdown   of the tempo which makes the drum fill into  the chorus feel just that much more epic god i love that effect uh more bands should do  that i know it can be kind of cheesy but uh it's   such a it's such a vibe such a vibe now this  chorus of all by myself is loosely inspired by   another one of eric carmen's songs let's pretend  from the band the raspberries let's pretend was a   nice melody that song didn't go quite as far as i  thought it should have i'll go back and steal for   myself for this this stolen chorus starts on a g  major chord the one chord we then go up to a three   minor a b minor chord followed by a very dramatic  motion down a tritone to a d minor over f which   resolves very nicely to an e7 sus4 to an e7 chord  the five seven of two chord it points to the two   chord it wants to resolve to the coot the q chord  the q chord the q chord ku chord ku chord the ii   chord we then get a minor the ii chord uh followed  by c minor over e flat which is that nostalgia   note which is the four minor chord in the key  of g followed by our d7 our five seven chord this harmony is borrowed directly from  rachmaninoff's second piano concerto the second   movement and is a fantastic example of a chord  sequence it's the same chord progression twice   it's just that the second time that we hear  the chord progression it's been moved down   a step it's the same chord progression twice  it's just that the second time we hear the   chord progression it's been moved down a step and  this is a great way of telling a story through a   musical arrangement we're expecting some kind of  resolution we're like going towards a destination   the destination of the sequence is at the end  of the chorus with the completion of the lyric   don't want to be by myself anymore which is  a very matter-of-fact sentiment it's just   the narrator stating their desires but in  this case the simplicity of it is by design   eric carman would write the lyrics are  as simple as i could possibly make them   sometimes my melodies are so dramatic that  if the lyric is that dramatic it's overkill   carmen's original song doesn't feature a climactic  modulation on the last chorus although there is   this very nice piano interlude that changes  keys quite frequently but the real secret   sauce to the song and the thing that many people  associate with it is that climactic key change now this is where the song changes  key what we call the modulation   changing key at an emotional climax has  been a big part of popular song so much   in fact that if done unartfully it can feel  cheesy and unearned and overly sentimental but   there are many great examples of it being done  right beyonce's love on top whitney houston's   i will always love you john bon jovi is  living on a prayer and many many others   that people suggested in a great twitter thread on  modulation there are many kinds of modulation but   all by myself features a common tone modulation  the next piece of the jargon puzzle a single   sustained tone bridges the gap between the two  keys in this case the common tone is e flat   that flat 6 nostalgia note in the key of g  that we've been talking about this whole time   nostalgia is actually the first time that we've  heard the note in the melody but we've heard this   resolution of the flat 6 down to the 5 and that  wistful nostalgic progression in the harmony many   times before in the verses and the choruses but  in this case on a minor 7 flat 5 the nostalgia   note does not resolve nostalgically instead it  transforms into the major third of the key of c   flat major now looking at the piano you might be  thinking like why aren't we calling it b major c   flat seems unnecessarily pretentious well e  flat is the third of the key of c flat d sharp   is the third of the key of b and yes they sound  the same d sharp and e flat are the same thing   on our equal tempered keyboard but they're very  different kinds of associations and feelings and   affects that are associated with d sharp in the  key of g d sharp the sharp five goes up e flat   the flat six the nostalgia note goes down  so we call the key that we're changing to   c flat major and not b major because the note  that's sustained between the two keys is an e   flat and e flat is the third note of the key of  c flat this seems like splitting hairs right now   but there are a lot of associations that we feel  when we call a note e flat versus d sharp and   if we don't make these clarifications now the  modulation won't make sense in the future also   the just intonation police will come after me if  i don't make this clarification so please please   don't come after me the decision to modulate on  the last course to that high e flat can be traced   to david foster celine dion's producer and oft  pianist david foster calls me i produced a song   for celine a few years ago that i i really am  proud of this song the way it it turned out and   the way we we kind of changed it around i arrived  to the studio said wait at the bridge i did a   little something and i was like is that the final  the key that finishes is the key that we chose   right now he says it's a key and a half higher  oh my god but i said david how could you do that   right she really got annoyed with because there's  a particularly high note in this song which is   ridiculously high but he said if you can't do  it there's other singers and those that can't   the high note at the climax of all by myself has  been a preoccupation for many singers and singing   fans there are compilations of celine singing  it throughout the years on youtube there are   many tick tocks of young singers attempting  the high note so since this is an episode that   features a lot of singing i thought i would  ask my voice teacher mom to shed some light   on some of the technique that goes into  singing one of these climactic high notes   there's echo cass well i listened to  three of her recordings i listened to 1996   made for mtv or something i listened to 2008 live  in 2020 live what i found so very interesting   about the live videos is that she sets herself  up for what she's about to do she gets very   firmly on her thighs she spreads her legs she  plants her feet and she gets ready to anchor   her body as she goes up now anchoring i just  want to say it's not like gripping it's actually   a balanced and coordinated muscular  engagement of the body that allows the   spine to stay flexible through the back wall of  the throat or she'll go no literally literally that's not just theatrics there is a method of  tapping the body to stimulate energy and then   the power stance the point is the body has  to be really really primed to contain that   kind of energy and express it the energy on  these dramatic high note key changes can seem   over the top but it's just part of a tradition of  similar over-the-top drama lovers film composers   and romantic era composers a lot of them were fans  of the next piece of the jargon puzzle the double   chromatic mediant modulation all right so when we  say median that's just a very old-school way of   saying the third note of the major scale the key  of g the mediant is b the chord built off of b   is a b minor chord and so when we modulate from  g major to b minor that is a mediant modulation   if you change the quality of this chord and key  to b major you'd have yourselves a chromatic   mediant modulation g major to b major you could  also change the quality of the first key because   remember that nostalgic note e flat is coming  from the key of g minor so when you have g minor   to be major that is a double chromatic mediant  modulation but remember i made a big fuss of not   calling it b major i called it c flat major and in  that case c flat major is n harmonic to b major so   when you go from the key of g minor to c flat  major you have an n harmonic chromatic mediant   modulation mediant modulation chromatic mediant  modulation double chromatic median modulation   and harmonic double chromatic medium to modulation  jargon sure is fun all these kinds of modulations   are two distant keys on the circle of fifths  there just aren't that many common tones shared   between them so the effect is dramatic this is  probably why traditionally they have been used so   frequently in film and earlier romantic era music  in fact in the music of sergey rahman enough in   his second piano concerto in the second movement  we get a double chromatic mediant modulation it   starts in c minor and over the course of  four bars modulates to the key of e major i can't say if this was a conscious  choice on the part of david foster to   use the same key change technique that  rachmaninoff did but it does serve to   highlight the spirit of rachmaninoff in the  arrangement of celine dions all by myself   so so far we have defined what the key change is  but we haven't really gotten into the emotional   meat of the matter like why is this key change  so affecting let's talk metaphor and meaning yip herberg was the lyricist for somewhere over  the rainbow the classic song about yearning for   something more in life harburg has this great  quote on songwriting which i originally got from   my buddy ben levin who mentions it in a recent  david bruce video music makes you feel feelings   lyrics make you think thoughts songs make you  feel thoughts and that's what's going on today   baby songs make you feel thoughts wow i love this  sentiment so much there's this empathy between   the narrator of the story and the audience it's a  way of making an audience feel a thought in live   orchestrations of the song the band drops out  entirely before the modulation it's just celine   singing there alone then a big drum fill happens  and then everybody in the band and orchestra joins   in with the modulation in other words she's alone  and then she's not that's like a pretty literal   example of storytelling using the orchestra in the  band kind of as like a rumble pack there's more   sound hitting your body at that moment but it is  a pretty effective way of telling a musical story   arrangement decisions and key changes can go  a long way in how we feel the same lyric over   the course of a song scott handenburg writes about  this in his article rock modulation and narrative   changes of key are influential in shaping our  sonic experiences of these songs experiences that   in turn contribute to our understanding of their  lyrical content musical features like modulation   can clarify an ambiguous lyric reinforce a song  central theme or subvert a singer's message   the first several times that we hear the  chorus lyric don't want to be by myself anymore   it's in the key of g and it comes across as kind  of a resigned pleading however when we get to the   chorus before the modulation when the melody is  altered to hit that high e flat the nostalgia note   the lyric comes across more as like the narrator  is demanding to not be by herself anymore and as   we cross the threshold from g major to c flat  major the e flat becomes a major third a point   of triumphant resolution and so we feel like the  narrator will in fact not be by herself anymore   you get a sense of the strength of the narrator  in this moment and i i literally mean the physical   strength of celine dion because it requires a lot  of breath support and a lot of control to be able   to produce this e flat that transforms g major to  c flat major in this way because music is acting   as a rumble pack here we're literally feeling it  it's a way of turning the bodily sensation into   some kind of metaphorical meaning now there are  other keys we could travel to in this moment of   great transformation like the key of a flat for  example is a good resting point for that e flat maybe or maybe the key of e flat  for example that also might work   that one feels a bit too literal for my tastes  and i i really think that c flat was the right   call and i think there's a good reason for that  too one second this is one of my favorite books   harmonic experience by w.a matthew matthew is a  composer who brought some of the ideas that he   learned as a student of north indian singing into  the western harmonic practice and this book is uh   it's so awesome that john coltrane blurbs it  like on the back matthew is consistently proving   himself to be one of the best in music theory  like john coltrane this this book is awesome   one idea offered by the book is that notes have  a reciprocal energy to them based on the harmonic   relationship back to a fundamental now if you need  a primer on the harmonic series andrew huang's got   you covered but basically around every fundamental  note there are other pitches which are vibrating   alongside it based upon mathematical multiples  of that fundamental some of these extra pitches   include the perfect fifth and the major third now  in the key of g uh we would call d the over tonal   fifth it's a perfect fifth up from g it is an  overtone of g c on the other hand would be the   reciprocal fifth it is a perfect fifth down from  g so if we were to sing the over tonal fifth d note that i'm singing is a harmonic of the root g however if we were to sing  the reciprocal fifth the c   ma the root of the key the g is a  harmonic of my own singing voice my own singing voice is the fundamental frequency  and then that root that home feeling that   everybody feels when they listen to the song is a  harmonic of me like the physical energy and like   the responsibility of reciprocal intervals is just  very different from overtone intervals if you're   trying to sing them in tune with the rest of the  band if you take for example an overtoneal third b   in the key of g and compare it to a reciprocal  third the nostalgia note e flat in the key of g   and kind of see what i mean you might be able  to get a sense of where we're going with this   the idea here is that when celine dion is singing  this high e flat this reciprocal third the rest   of the band in the key center is a harmonic  of her singing voice and when the key changes   the polarity shifts and everything has to be  recalibrated physically and how the waveforms   interact with one another so that she is now  singing a harmonic to the rest of the band there's   a pretty profound energy shift here four against  five becomes five against four we have crossed   the streams as it were see on the other side  right matthew offers a map of emotional affects   that traces this emotional energy through the  overtonal and reciprocal thirds and fifths pa the   overtonal fifth is sun energy ma the reciprocal  fifth is moon energy ga the overtonal third is   compassion and komu da the reciprocal third is  passion there is one combination of tones that   is almost bizarre in its affect the alternation  between ga and the overtonal and reciprocal thirds   thirds have a drama in them a kind of grain  or current almost as if you could detect the   five against four working itself out in  the fluids and to membranes of the ear   when you flip that energy you are flipping your  inner life you were talking about the high belted   note as being this pinnacle of expression which is  why people belt if you're belting just to show off   i mean you'll get the applause  because people don't know any better   but but if you want it to ring true like dion's  there is a whole body involvement in it that comes   from knowing what that emotion feels like but then  also having an instrument prepared to express it   so that the instrument doesn't express the actual  angst you feel because then everything closes   um yeah yeah you uh what is it you express  emotions you don't feel emotions that's a   that's a well you have to know how they  feel but you can't feel them in that moment on january 14 2016 celine dion's longtime  husband and manager renee anjalil died of   throat cancer two days later on january 16 2016  her brother daniel dion also died of cancer   february 23rd was the first time that dion  returned to performing at her las vegas residency   after these dual tragedies in her life she's  saying all by myself a song whose structure is   specifically designed to feel the thought of  not being alone imagine living this catharsis   night after night on that stage for years  living the story of ritualistically calling   out to the heavens and demanding to not be  alone anymore and through the sheer physical   power of your voice and the technique that you  have developed on your instrument and a clever   key change or two the world around you acquiesces  and bends to your will until one night it doesn't now this is where the song changes key what  we call a modulation part of the craft of   musicianship is mediating the immediate  physical shock of moments of emotional   resonance which is very similar to what stage  actors do you have to embody the emotion in   order to convey it authentically without  letting it take over now unlike stage acting   music is largely a metaphorical language and  as such it's a more direct line to experience   if you're telling a story through music  it lets people feel the story immediately   provided that you share the same cultural  and personal references as the storyteller   things like the nostalgia note the flat  six nostalgia go a long way in helping us   feel the story of not wanting to be alone but  there is even more that we can say about this from   the perspective of embodied cognition and singing  technique that's another thing i found fascinating   about dion's live videos because i've seen my  students do this i certainly did this when i   performed but as a classical musician so if you'd  like to hear some more of the conversation that i   had with my mom on all of this you can watch the  extended version of this video essay exclusively   on nebula nebula is a creator-owned streaming  service where you can watch extended versions   of many of my videos ad-free as well as  extended versions of many of your favorite   youtube creators including lindsay ellis legal  eagle 12 tone mary spender charles cornell and   many many others it's a great place to watch  and discover quality content ad-free as well as   support your favorite creators nebula and this  video is supported in part by curiosity stream   the go-to source for the very best documentaries  on the internet with thousands of titles to choose   from including the very excellent documentary  about the idiosyncratic pianist glenn gould   genius within the inner life of glenn  gould talk about emotion and music man you sign up to curiosity stream with  either the link in the description or   curiositystream.com neely you'll also get  a nebulous subscription for free and what's   more is that for a limited time you'll get both  curiosity stream and nebula for an entire year   for just 14.79 that's a 26 discount wait hold  on that's less than a dollar 25 a month like   that's that's a it's an expensive subscription you  know by signing up to this curiosity stream nebula   bundle you're not only helping to support this  channel but all of the creators over at nebula as   we create content that aims to engage the world in  a meaningful way thank you so much everybody for watching peace

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 1,298,342

Rating: 4.9484992 out of 5

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: epqYft12nV4

Length: 27min 7sec (1627 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/IO_you_new_socks]

Adam Neely is brilliant, but I can't help but feel like he "word salads" musical concepts to make things seem more complicated than they really are.

[u/DashingMustashing]

Didn't expect to watch a 30 min video about a song I don't give a damn about. Nostalgia

[u/usefulbuns]

So, I've been trying to figure this out for a while and maybe y'all can help me because what he describes in this video seems similar to what I'm looking for.

I love songs that change throughout. There is this Halsey song "Bad at Love" which I really like because she sings one portion in a mellow way, then gets to the chorus (?) and just lets loose. I love that contrast.

Another song is Hallucinogenics by Matt Maeson. Similar thing where he sings kind of quietly or mellow and then switches and adds a ton of power and emotion.

What do you call songs that do this? I really want a playlist of these kinds of songs but can't figure out if there is a name for this style.

[u/Alina_1981]

Celine Dion, one of the Best voices în The world

[u/CptToastymuffs]

I...I watched the whole thing. I am glad I did this thing but I do not understand WHY I did this thing.

[u/FireappleRed]

Oh buy my shelf

[u/Rush100413]

Amazing video!

[u/neospecv]

god damn that woman can sing.

[u/chaosxq]

My favourite key change is in the Police song Synchronicity

About 2 mins in

https://youtu.be/Si5CSpUCDGY