16b Lesson - Pivot chords

Class discussion

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We highly recommend that if you weren’t doing lead sheet notation first in your analyses, you start now. It’s especially important to do it this way now because we’re getting into modulation, and lead sheet will keep you from having to go back and re-do a bunch of work, which might happen if you try and do Roman numerals first. Remember: Roman numerals label function, whereas lead sheet just labels chords. To figure out what the music is doing, first we have to know what we have.

Pivot modulations (Common chord pivot modulations)

• Three important questions:
  • Where do you first hear something changing?
  • How is the change prepared?
  • What harmonies transition in and out of modulation?
• With pivot modulations, you always modulate before you actually hear it. There’s always an overlap with the previous key where the pivot modulation happens–there has to be a functional progression on both sides of the pivot chord
  • Ideally, your pivot chord is the chord right before you hear the modulation. In the Haydn example, we don’t hear the modulation until the C# in the bass in the second system. So, the chord in the first half of the same measure (I in G, IV in D) is where we would actually put the pivot chord bracket.
  • Another ex: in the Tchaikovsky example, we hear the modulation in the second to last measure. The chord in the second half of the measure right before it is D major, which is I in the original key and Vi in the new key–a perfect pivot chord! It fits right into a standard circle-of-fifths progression.
• If you have a lot of V/V - V - V/V - etc. in a row, chances are you have modulated and are now in a new key. This is the case for any new key, not just V.
• How to label: use a pivot chord bracket!
• Where will you (usually) find these?: in the middle of a phrase!