Clarification on how to modulate

[theholygideons]

Hi everybody!
I'm reading Arnold Schoenberg's theory of harmony, and have reached the section about modulations. With all these rules floating about and his tendencies to waffle on a bit, the process behind modulating seems vague and not well understood by me yet.

So, with modulating, would I be correct to say that it's as simple as: beginning the modulation with a neutral chord that belongs to both keys, introducing the modulatory chord that has a note(s) belonging to the new key, followed by a cadence in the new key. Also, is the cadencing chord directly after the modulatory chord, since, in examples, i'm seeing the tonic of the new key directly after the modulatory chord, or is it later on, or is it like, 2 perfect cadences in 1 phrase.

I'm !$@#ing confused.

Thanks!


 

[inverted]

I've never really read anything on harmonic theory (Shoenbergs Fundamentals of Music Composition touches very little on harmony). But your summarisation strikes me as what I generally do.

If I want to modulate from C to G I might linger on Dmin for a bit, go up to C  and then cadence onto G, ideally G7 maybe trying to lead the G in the C chord into an F#, just to make it clearer that the key is changed. A real knowledge of modulatory preparation would probably be very useful, but I've found modulating to the dominant, sub-dominant and relative minor all quite intuitive.

I'm not sure I understand the question about e cadencing/tonic chord. From what it sounds like you have a better technical knowledge than I do.

[lelle]

Hi everybody!
I'm reading Arnold Schoenberg's theory of harmony, and have reached the section about modulations. With all these rules floating about and his tendencies to waffle on a bit, the process behind modulating seems vague and not well understood by me yet.

So, with modulating, would I be correct to say that it's as simple as: beginning the modulation with a neutral chord that belongs to both keys, introducing the modulatory chord that has a note(s) belonging to the new key, followed by a cadence in the new key. Also, is the cadencing chord directly after the modulatory chord, since, in examples, i'm seeing the tonic of the new key directly after the modulatory chord, or is it later on, or is it like, 2 perfect cadences in 1 phrase.

I'm !$@#ing confused.

Thanks!


 

These things are of course not 100% set in stone. But it's true that many modulations use some chord that can be interpreted in several different ways as leverage to get from one key to another.

Take a simple modulation from C to G major,

C G C D7 G

You first have Tonic - Dominant - Tonic. But the second tonic (the second C major chord) also becomes the Subdominant of G major, so in the last three chords you get a S - D -T cadence and end up in G major.