Modulatory Techniques

To modulate, we must create a definitive progression in the new key area. This is called establishing the new key.

ESTABLISHING THE NEW KEY AREA

Usually an applied chord is necessary in a modulation. However, it is not enough in itself to establish a new key area. We need a more extensive, confirming progression. This often takes the form I-IV-V-I (or I-ii6-V-I) in the new key. For example, to modulate to V we must first tonicize V with an applied chord. Then we must establish V as a new key area with a confirming progression within the key of V.

TYPES OF MODULATION

Traditionally, two modulatory techniques are used. The first uses what we call a pivot chord between the new key and the old. This technique, in effect, overlaps a progression in the old key with the establishing progression in the new key. The second technique is more abrupt, tonicizing the new key with a cross-relation before the establishing progression.

Harmonic Tonicization and Modulation

The Pivot-Chord Modulation. A chord held in common between two keys is a common chord. Any common chord can serve as a pivot chord.

Ex. 13-4 Bach, Chorale 20

Bach follows the perfect authentic cadence of measure 1 with a modulation to V. In measure 3, he confirms and establishes V as a key area with a perfect authentic cadence to V. The final I of the initial cadence serves as the pivot chord. On reaching the applied dominant to V on the second beat of measure 2, we interpret the weak I-iii motion in the old key area as IV-vi-V in the new key area. The pivot chord modulation (sometimes called a

"common-chord modulation") is by far the most common modulatory technique.

Modulation By Cross-Relation. We can, on the other hand, avoid a pivot chord by moving directly from a chord found in the old key but not in the new key to a chord found in the new key but not the old. When we use this technique to modulate between closely related keys, a cross-relation results. Such a modulation is abrupt and dramatic by comparison with the pivot-chord modulation.

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Ex. 13-5 Bach, Chorale 74

The first part of example 13-5 provides a clear half cadence in G minor. Bach leaves the cadential V with a chord that clearly contradicts the G tonic, however. On the last quarter of the second full measure, the soprano leaps from A up to F-natural. This F-natural creates both a cross relation with the F-sharp leading tone (alto) that preceded it, and a dissonance (diminished fifth) above the bass B-natural. This major-minor 6/5 on G cannot be tonic. The F-natural destroy the leading tone of G at the same time it creates an applied V6/5 that points to C.

The F-B tritone (between soprano and bass) is the key-defining tritone of C. It immediately (measure 3) resolves to C (IV), tonicizing it. Bach makes of this tonicization a modulation, by continuing to progress as if inC. He confirms C as tonic with an imperfect authentic cadence at the end of measure 4.

This modulation hinges on the cross-relation of measure 2. Therefore, Bach makes the cross-relation clear by passing the changing scale degree from a weak inner voice (alto) to a strong outer voice (soprano). The effect is startling but, at the same time, perfectly clear. (If the cross-relation does not pass from an inner voice to an outer voice, it should be kept within the same voice.)

Summary:

We can intensify a scale degree triad by tonicizing it. We do so by approaching it from an applied chord. An applied chord reproduces the V, V7, vii, or vii7 that is found in the key of the tonicized triad. The applied chord behaves as if the tonicized triad were, in fact, "tonic."

The quality of the tonicized triad determines the mode of tonicization. In a major key, vii7 is a half-diminished seventh. In a minor key it is a fully-diminished seventh. So when creating an applied vii7 to a major triad, we construct a minor seventh above the applied leading tone. When creating an applied vii7 to a minor triad, we construct a diminished seventh above the applied leading tone.

A modulation is an extended tonicization. Usually, a modulation begins with a tonicization. However, after tonicizing a triad, we must then establish the new key area. We do so with a confirming progression in the new

Harmonic Tonicization and Modulation

key area. This confirming progression may be an authentic or half cadence. It may simply involve the principal triads of the new key area. In either event, it must do more than merely provide an applied chord to the tonicized triad.

Modulation can be either gradual or abrupt. We effect a gradual modulation by using a chord or succession of chords, called pivot chords, shared by the old and the new key areas. An abrupt modulation with a cross relation takes us immediately from a chord not found in the new key area to a chord not found in the old key area. We must be careful either to keep the cross-relation in the same voice, or pass it from an inner voice to an outer voice.

For Additional Study

● Aldwell, Edward, and Carl Schachter. Harmony and Voice Leading. 2d ed. 2 vols. New York: Harcourt

Brace Jovanovich, 1989. Chapter 25.

● Christ, William, et al. Materials and Structure of Music. 3d ed. Vol. I. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice-Hall, 1980. Chapters 20-21.

● Kostka, Stefan, and Dorothy Payne. Tonal Harmony. 2d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. Chapters

16-19.

● Ottman, Robert W. Elementary Harmony. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1989. Chapter 12.

● Piston, Walter. Harmony. 5th ed. Revised and expanded by Mark DeVoto. New York: Norton, 1987.

Chapters 14-16.

● Schoenberg, Arnold. Structural Functions of Harmony. Rev. ed. Edited by Leonard Stein. New York:

Norton, 1969. Chapters 3-4.

● Schoenberg, Arnold. Theory of Harmony. Translated by Roy E. Carter. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1983. Chapters 9-10.

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