August 13, 2003

Back to the Land

Here's a whole website devoted to the anti-modulation cause.

What, you didn't know there was an anti-modulation movement? Neither did I. In case you don't know, a modulation in a pop song arrangement is where the song changes key at certain strategic points, often near the end. It can shake up the song, provide a little extra "oomph" at the end, or simply put things in a new context by, at minimum, requiring the singer(s) to sing it in a different way and the players to use different voicings or inversions.

I think it sounds nice, but then I'm one of the offenders. And one day, when the revolution comes, the streets will run red with our blood, no doubt.

It seems that modulation is referred to as "the truck driver's gear change" by those who are offended by it. I'd never heard this term before, but it appears that the website's administrator didn't make it up. There is, I gather, an improbable, loose-knit underground movement of anti-modulation revolutionaries, with a language all their own, and I'm not hip enough to feature what they're putting down. I guess such activists see it as a cheap trick, giving unscrupulous songs an unfair advantage over those good and decent tunes that play by the rules? Like athletes taking steroids or the designated hitter rule? Songs should remain always in the same key, like the pure, honest, German peasant? It's a powerful (though, in my view, dangerous) notion.

Long ago, when I was more politically active myself, I was heavily involved in the Disco Sucks Movement. I realize the folly of these views now, of course, though some say the pendulum has swung too far toward the other extreme. What can I say? I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

(via Crooked Timber's Tom, who is himself a convert to the cause. Death to the fascist insect that prays on the life of the people, etc.)

UPDATE: "Pythagoras" ably defends modulation, though I imagine he'd agree that you could boil the case down to eight simple, unassailable words: The KKK Took My Baby Away. (Or is that six words?) Layne also has some comments.

I've had a couple of emails questioning my claim to be "one of the offenders." In fact, my songs incorporate key changes all over the place. The question you have to ask yourself when arranging is, do you want the song to migrate back to the original key after, say, the bridge (as in "Last Time I Listened to You") or do you want to follow the logic of the key change and take the song to the new level (as in "Mr. Ramones," "Swiss Army Girlfriend," "Stephanies of the World Unite")? In "Last Time..." pulling off the feat of returning to the key of D for the last verse involves several trucking gear fabs (or whatever they call them)-- E flat for the solo, A flat for the bridge, up to A (by means of those half-step punches that punctuate each section) which gets used as the V chord leading back to D. That was basically because I had a hard time singing the verse in any of the other keys; plus, I just thought it sounded cool. "So Long Sucker" changes from E all the way up to A for the end for the choruses, simply because I couldn't possibly manage to sing them in E. In the end, it sounded pretty cool, too. Or so I told myself.

We've also had several of the straight-forward, move the song up a whole step for the final chorus without ceremony thing that is apparently regarded as the ultimate sin by the arrangement reformers. Most recently, I think, in "I Wrote a Book about Rock and Roll." Why? It just felt right. You can put me before the Inquisition if you like, but you're gonna have to catch me first.

Posted by Dr. Frank at August 13, 2003 05:32 PM | TrackBack
Comments

"Dizzy" is, well, incredibly dizzying in its modulation. It's a fun trick, but it's definitely a big reason the "Sweet Pea" side is more worn on my 45.

Posted by: Dave Bug at August 13, 2003 08:36 PM

sorry frank,disco still sucks...

its not a movement....


...its the gospel truth. ;)


beth

Posted by: squeakycleaner at August 14, 2003 02:13 AM

Another vote for Disco! There was some damned good stuff ... Chic, for one. Beautiful records, all the way around. Also Blondie, Barry White, Isaac Hayes, Stevie Wonder's "I Wish," all sorts of great ABBA songs, the lone hit Nashville disco song (Glenn Campbell's "Southern Nights"), the theme song from Baretta! And what about Prince, Rick James, Chaka Khan? "Some Girls" & "Emotional Rescue"? How about KC's "Jungle Boogie." And there's Boz Scaggs ... was he disco? I don't know, but Lido Shuffle sure sounds like it. Plenty 'o great disco out there.

Was just thinking of "If I Can't Have You" -- man, that's just a perfect pop-heartbreak song. I can still remember how good that sounded coming out of an AM radio. That song's ripe for a cover.

Posted by: Ken Layne at August 14, 2003 03:15 AM

The most punk rock show I ever played was as a one-time disco cover band called Denny Terio and the Jive Talkers, in Isla Vista. It was the summer of 1987, a good three years before the New York Times reported that a new "disco revival" was beginning to take hold in Manhattan. Friends of mine in a drunk/punk band called the Mystic Sultans of Ben-Wa had been listening to a lot of Saturday Night Fever, Trammps & K-Tel, and were shocked by how good some of it was (example, from The Sylvers' "Boogie Fever" -- "you know she ate a pizza // dancing to the beat"). Someone had a punk-rock party with a bunch of bands, and we decided to learn six songs and open, wearing leisure suits.

You should have seen the looks on people's faces in the slam pit, which began to close around us in a negative, menacing circle. No one was smiling, and I thought we were going to get beat up (it was the first time I'd ever played a bass, so this made concentration difficult). And then the hardest-core punk rock chick of UCSB, the glorious, dodeca-pierced Beth Allen (now at the Bay Guardian, I think; and formerly of PMS/Cockpit), started to dance. Slowly at first. Then with some strategic finger-pointing. Then a few mohawks joined in. Before you know it, punk rockers were dancing, whooping it up, and singing the words to "You Should Be Dancing." It was a triumph of the human spirit.

I'm going to go now and listen to my Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits record, and see if a single song does *not* modulate. I doubt it.

Posted by: Matt Welch at August 14, 2003 03:45 AM

Funny that Ken should mention "If I Can't Have You" -- that was the dealmaker, as far as I was concerned. I figured if the Disco Sucks movement had buried a terrific, heartbreaking song like that, it had certainly gone too far.

Posted by: Matt Welch at August 14, 2003 03:52 AM

Totally unrelated to this debate... has anyone actually clicked on the link to "the official MTX page" from Lookout's new album page?

Posted by: mike at August 14, 2003 06:46 PM

This is very interesting, Frank! I love hearing the secrets (OK, maybe not secrets) of the rock trade.

Oddly enough I have had this song stuck in my head for the past couple days by a portland band called Kissing Tigers, and the song ("I died at the mall") has a great key change in it.

The MTX song BA BA BA BA BA also has "modulation", doesn't it?

Posted by: XdrunkX at August 14, 2003 06:57 PM

Hey Dr. Frank :).

This "article" was freshly written and made me smile (and even laugh out loud) a couple of times. And it's about a topic i'm familiar with: music :). Hurray for you! It's nice to see that POLITICS isn't the only thing you care about. No offense, but as a non-native speaker of English, your former articles on the war in Iraq were kinda hard to read/understand (---> i also did not have enough contextual knowledge to get what you were talking about). I've been a *big* fan of your song writing (on life, girls, television) and this "article" reminded me of those good old days (1995-1999) when life was good and innocent ... and you could always count on *sympathetic* bands like the Ghoulies (fortunately, they're still there!), MTX, the Hi-Fives etc. I wish I could flashback to these days, coz I miss them :(. *sigh* I'm getting old ;).

Posted by: Arjan van Geel at August 14, 2003 09:12 PM

I have no problem with key changes or any other music-theory geekery (I listen to Rush, for chrissakes). I don't care if it's artificial or whatever, it really does feel right 9 times out of 10, and feel trumps all in music for me. There's a J-Pop song from a few years back called "Aozora No Knife" that jacks the final chorus up a step or two and feels all orgasmic and trumphant as a result. Perfect.

I also agree with Welch and Layne on disco. Even the cheezy overplayed hits are still frequently great songs played on real instruments, something you don't see much in modern dance music. (I'm not against electronica per se, but I think it needs to try harder to have the wonderful feel that disco often did).

Posted by: Ian S. at August 14, 2003 11:42 PM

"the fascist insect that prays" would be the praying mantis?

Posted by: x at August 14, 2003 11:43 PM

in college, a friend and i had a joke that all of indian classical music was one big dominant chord and one day it would resolve causing confusion in some, relief in others.

Posted by: arifa at August 15, 2003 07:43 AM

OK -
In some songs, modulation is acceptable. Not to brown nose, but it works well in I Wrote A Book because, just as you say, it gives that extra oomph to the end of the song. However, too many people use it as simply a lack of originality in a song. I love Screeching Weasel, for example, but a lot of stuff on the Television City Dream album has tons of modulation in it (man I love using this word! had no idea one existed for it) such as Speed of Mutation, Dummy Up, etc., and it just gets a bit boring after a while without serving a real point. Another song is Don't Back Down (I know it through the Queers record), which I HATE because its alllllllll modulation.

Modulation as a bang-out ending is acceptable and often a plus. Modulation 30 seconds to less than halfway through the song is not.

Disco more or less sucks.

Nick

Posted by: nick carr at August 15, 2003 08:00 AM

I noticed that on the live versions I have of "The KKK Took My Baby Away," they skip the modulation and just play it all in one key. I've always wondered why they do that. When we cover it we have to keep the modulation in there because it just feels weird if we don't.

I have no problem with modulation, in fact, I just finished writing a song with modulation at the end, so add me to the most wanted list! I'm kind of proud, becasue none of my other songs have ever had it, and it makes me feel all accomplished and professional! Silly as that may be. Continued good luck with recording, and I can't wait til you come back to Sac.

Posted by: Mickie Rat at August 15, 2003 07:07 PM

To be fair, there is something wrong with completely writing off disco because it isn't what you consider "good music". Sure, most of it is crap, but thats true for almost every genre of music. There are some truly great disco songs. Rather than reveling in our superiority to fans of disco, we should embrace people of all muscial orientions.

Posted by: matthew at August 17, 2003 04:31 AM

Actually, my days as an anti-disco activist were short lived, and I got over it pretty quickly. It was mostly a pretense anyway, re-inforced by the humiliation and indignity of having to endure public lessons in The Hustle at junior high gym class. (Did you know that "The Hustle" had lyrics? "Everybody's doing The Hustle, everybody's moving their bustle..." They even tried to make us sing it, the sadists.)

Plus, the Disco Sucks crowd tended to champion music that arguably sucked just as bad, e.g. Eddie Money, Greg Kihn, Yes. (Aaagh! I suddenly realize I have a fondness for "Two Tickets to Paradise" and Next of Kihn. It's weird being all old and open minded all of a sudden. Still drawing a blank on Yes, though.)

Posted by: Dr. Frank at August 17, 2003 03:51 PM

Re: Disco

Don't forget those great Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder tracks like "I feel love," which paved the way for about 10 genres of dance music in the future. I love the way that song breaks down in the end.

Posted by: Eric Deamer at August 18, 2003 04:19 PM

Nick wrote: "Modulation as a bang-out ending is acceptable and often a plus. Modulation 30 seconds to less than halfway through the song is not."

How about in the first 2 seconds?

In the intro to The Doors' "Light My Fire" Ray Manzarek modulates a riff around the circle of fifths until he lands at a good key for the vocal.

Posted by: fub at August 18, 2003 04:48 PM

The Mystic Sultans of Ben-Wa were a classic, my band Rogue Cheddar had the privelege of opening for them several times. I have many good memories of the Sultans, particularly their song "Soup" which, performance-wise, involved the band throwing full cans of soup at audience members resulting in several going down in the fray unconcious and/or with teeth missing.

Posted by: tomdog at July 24, 2006 04:30 PM