and now for your entertainment: a lesson in modulation
Once again, this can all be blamed on my roommate and that ridiculously happy, peppy music by Owl City that basically plagued my life yesterday.
Only today, it's worse. As if happy, peppy, synthesized music weren't enough, I have now got what has to be the universe's goopiest song stuck in my head. I don't even understand how much I like this song! It doesn't make any sense! By all rights, I should be cringing and rolling my eyes and possibly setting something on fire in protest of the epic mushiness dripping from this song. Instead, I'm, like, doodling hearts in my lab notebook! WHAT. I'm telling you, there is clearly crazy, voodoo magic at work here.
Anyway, so one of my labmates came into the optics room while I was blasting this song for, oh, the zillionth time, laughed at me, and said, "Linh, this is, like, the goopiest song in the universe, how can you be listening to this?" And instead of admitting the truth, which was "I DON'T KNOW WHY I LIKE THIS SONG SO MUCH, OKAY," I said something like, "Oh, well, heh, it, um, it has a cool key change? And, you know, key changes are the best. Anyway, let me just put on these headphones while you're in here so you don't realized that I'm listening to this exact same song over and over and over again aren't bothered by my awesome and incredibly diverse playlist."
A hour or so later, after listening to the same key change for the two zillionth time, I have to admit, key changes are pretty awesome. Which got me to thinking: has there ever been a song that's pulled off a downward key change? I couldn't think of any, and I have a feeling that if someone ever did manage to stick it in a song and make it work, (a) it would be the most unsettling, creepy, and yet cool thing ever, and (b) they would basically win the internetz.
So rather than spending my time in lab doing crazy things like, I dunno, labwork, I googled 'downward key changes'. I couldn't really find any famous examples (or, actually, any examples at all), but I did find this site talking about the common use of key changes (or modulation if you want to get fancy) in popular music and listing some examples (and, dude, I'm glad to see I'm not alone in thinking that the key change in Man in the Mirror on the word "change" is possibly one of the coolest key changes ever).
There was also a list of some songs that make fun of the use of key changes...You can tell this is going to end in serious lols, right? :D
Okay, okay, first, even though I already knew about this one, it deserves a mention: Song That Goes Like This from Monty Python's Spamalot. Guys, there are, like, three key changes in this song. It's epic. And hysterical.
Click to viewSo Song That Goes Like This makes fun of those power love ballads that people like to stick in musicals. This next one pays homage to that wondrous pop culture phenomenon of the 90's: the boy band. By providing a helpful outline of a typical boy band love song. A Capella.
Oh my god, "Enumeration of my various transgressive actions of insufficient motivation"!!! And "Request to turn back time and rectify my wrongs. Repetition of the title of the song". Guys, it's entirely possible that I spent the entire song with my head down on my desk and shaking with laughter in full view of at least two of my labmates. Oh, man. :D
And finally, to round it all off, who doesn't love the Muppets?
Haha, okay, I'm gonna stop wasting everyone's time now. :)