General Conference Modulations

(Note: Watching the video is highly recommended so you can hear the examples. You may also find that this transcript doesn’t entirely match — because I went off script a little. Both the video and this transcript capture the essence of the General Conference Modulation.)

Hello! I’m Mel Windham, composer and owner of Melkim Publishing. And today I thought I’d do something fun. I’d like to explore the infamous “General Conference Modulation.”

“Wait!” you may ask. “What is a General Conference Modulation?” Worry no more because you’re about to find out. I’ll show you three modulations you can use in your own music.

Okay, so let’s imagine we’re in General Conference and the Tabernacle Choir is singing in the Key of C. Something like this. [Random music]

Okay — and then we come back home to C. What should we do next? The organ crescendos, raises the G to a G#. And then to an A. And what comes next? Bb! It’s now a C⁷ chord. We’ll sit on it for a couple of measures and then … BANG! We’re suddenly in the key of E. What happened?! We’ve suddenly raised the key up a major third.

Let’s hear that again. We’re in C. We work our way up to C⁷. And then … key of E. Whoa! Doesn’t it sound cool? Let’s look closer at the notes.

Start with  I. Raise the 5th degree up chromatically until you get up to the 7th. I call this the milking stage, because it builds the tension as we get to the  I⁷  chord. Then resolve it to a  I⁶₄ chord in the new key, then give it  V⁷  and a  I  to lock it all in.

So, how does this modulation work, and why does it sound so good? Let’s look closer at the I⁷ chord. It has a tritone here between E and Bb. Tritones are nice and dissonant. They’re magical in that we can resolve them different ways. If we add a C at the bottom, the most normal way to resolve this tritone is to go inward to F and A, which takes us easily to the key of F. But do we expect “normal” at General Conference?

If instead we resolve E and Bb outward to D# and B, then we end up with a B chord. And then we could stay in the key of B, but for some reason, it almost always sounds like it wants to resolve next to the key of E.

Instead of resolving outward, we could make it more interesting … like this. Keep the E the same and move the Bb up to B, and we’re instantly in the key of E. But what happens to C in the root of the C⁷ chord? It resolves down to the B, and here lies the magic of the General Conference Modulation.

From the C⁷ chord, the bottom note C resolves down to B. And the top note Bb resolves up to B … like this … kind of like coming together. Since the bottom note is going down, it feels like we’re falling. But our ears also hear the key going up a major third at the same time, almost as if the heavens are opening up, and hence we hear this as being a heavenly artifact. It catches our attention, pulls us in, and the Spirit flows. So, it’s no wonder that this gets used a lot, as it’s effective, and well — we’re used to hearing it now.

Let me show you another modulation. This one gets used less frequently in General Conference, but worth mentioning. If we invert the C⁷ chord with E (the third) on the bottom, then the Bb can resolve up to a C, and the E can resolve down to Eb, and the G goes to Ab, which surprisingly brings us to the key of Ab — a major third DOWN from where we were before. This can be useful, but not as satisfying. The movement from Bb to C is a major 2nd, which is further than the minor 2nd we’ve heard in the other examples, and the sense of going down in the bass, and down in the key at the same time doesn’t seem to open the heavens quite so much.

So, let’s see. I’ve shown you the not-so satisfying “down a third” modulation. I’ve shown the “normal” modulation. And for the last time, let’s hear the “up a third” modulation, or the most popular General Conference Modulation.

Now that you know what it sounds like and how it works, you can use it in your own music and sound like the pros. Also, this coming General Conference, see how many of these you can count. Have fun with it! And make sure to come back here for more fun later.

Extra credit: About the milking stage, anything goes. Do whatever you’d like to go from I to I⁷. In fact, you may have noticed that in the video, I also raise the soprano from E up to G chromatically, which helps with the voice leading, as you can see below. You can even skip the milking stage altogether, go straight to I⁷ and then resolve. But why skip the milk?