Mod of the Day

Eric Reed | Flamenco Sketches

Though post-bop jazz and gospel flavors of his sound have developed over his many solo releases, pianist Eric Reed, a native of Philadelphia, got his first break working with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ band during the 1980s. Since then, he’s worked with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Cyrus Chesnut, and many other greats.

Starting in C major, “Flamenco Sketches” (2002) cycles through several keys before returning back to C major at 2:05, repeating the cycle again at 3:54 and 5:30. From AllMusic.com’s review: “Reed takes full advantage of the modal basis, building lush chord structures, trills, and tremolo effects on top of each other for a heavy six and a half minutes.”

Bruce Springsteen | Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen’s smash hit “Born to Run” (1975) is another submission from our frequent contributor JB. Addressing the grandiosity of the album’s wall-of-sound approach, AllMusic.com’s review states: “To call (it) overblown is to miss the point; Springsteen‘s precise intention is to blow things up, both in the sense of expanding them to gargantuan size and of exploding them…an intentional masterpiece, it declared its own greatness with songs and a sound that lived up to Springsteen‘s promise, and though some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting.” While the track only hit #23 on the Billboard Hot 100, it’s ranked #21 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is enshrined in the Rock Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

After establishing verses and choruses in E major, a chaotic multi-section bridge starts at 2:12, veering into several keys before touching back down into E major at 3:06 for a final verse, chorus, and an extended outro.

Jacob Collier | Hallelujah

I have posted Jacob Collier singing a different arrangement of this same song here before, but I came across this rendition today, filmed a few days ago, and it is so transcendent that I have to share it again. As Collier says before he begins, “It starts in C Major, but we’ll see where it ends up,” making it particularly fitting for this page.

Free Nationals | Apartment

AllMusic.com describes Free Nationals as “a smooth, funk-fluent R&B band” which has “recorded and performed extensively with Grammy-winning artist Anderson .Paak…The quartet became integral to (.Paak’s) progression on Malibu, a 2017 breakthrough nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Urban Contemporary Album.” In 2019, their debut self-titled album reached #3 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers chart. NME.com reports that the band “proudly wear(s) their influences on their sleeve – the band are long-term scholars of Stevie Wonder, Parliament-Funkadelic, Herbie Hancock and many more.”

Starting in B minor, “Apartment” features a syncopated intro which shifts into a settled C# minor groove at the first verse (0:28), then back to B minor at the chorus (0:52). The intro’s syncopated kicks and compound chords return to bracket verse 2/chorus 2 (1:39 and 2:56), leaving us hanging with an unexpected ending where the third verse should have been.

Andrea Bocelli | Con Te Partirò

James Corden kicked off #HomeFest on The Late Late Show last night, with Andrea Bocelli as one of the featured performers singing “Con Te Partirò.” Originally released in 1995 on Bocelli’s second studio album, the track has gone on to become one of the best-selling singles of all time and is considered his signature song. Key change at 4:40.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Fantasia in C Minor (K. 475)

A good example of a common-tone modulation is presented by Mozart’s Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475 (1785). A shift from B major to D major jumps out at 2:32 via a repeated F# in the melody as the accompaniment briefly pauses. French pianist Ismaël Margain, a graduate of Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Paris, is at the keyboard.

Charles Cornell | Imagine

As a response to the COVID-19 crisis, actress Gal Godot recently convened a group of celebrities to cover John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The vocals, while heartfelt, are a cappella and all over the place in terms of key. Multi-instrumentalist Charles Cornell has devised an accompaniment which knocks some of the harsh edges off of the, um, transitions.

Many thanks to MotD contributor Alex Mosher for this submission!

UPDATE: a few days later, the YouTuber Charles Cornell uploaded this update, explaining how he approached smoothing out the modulations:

My Favorite Things (from “The Sound of Music”)

“My Favorite Things” is from the beloved (and last) Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, which premiered on Broadway in 1959. Starring Mary Martin, the musical theatre production was followed by the classic film adaptation in 1965, starring Julie Andrews. The song passes seamlessly between E minor, and the parallel and relative major, E and G respectively, throughout the song. I hope this classic tune brings a smile to your face, a warmth to your heart, and a reminder of your favorite things.

Warren Zevon | Accidentally Like a Martyr

From AllMusic’s review of Warren Zevon‘s tune “Accidentally Like a Martyr” comes this effusive praise for the often paradoxical singer-songwriter: “…a hard-bitten tough guy and writer of the noir wave classics ‘Werewolves of London’ and ‘Excitable Boy’ turned out to have a soft underbelly: ‘Accidentally Like a Martyr,’ taken from his 1978 breakthrough album, Excitable Boy, is a starkly realistic song about a screwed up love relationship…”

IMDB reports that Zevon, “the son of a gangster who was a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Mormon Midwestern mother of English descent,” had a difficult childhood and a false start in the music business as a folk/rock singer during the 1960s. IMDB continues: Zevon “establish(ed) himself as one of the most offbeat and intelligent singer-songwriters in the mid-1970s” before his death of lung cancer at the age of 56 in 2003.

Starting in F major, there are modulations to Ab major instrumental sections at 1:30 and 3:04; the latter has been used as bumper music between segments of NPR’s news programming for years. Both of the Ab sections have an off-kilter meter (alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4) which only adds to the tune’s anthemic sound. Many thanks to veteran mod scout JB for this contribution!

Il Divo | All By Myself

Originally written, recorded, and released by Eric Carmen in 1975, “All By Myself” has been covered by many artists, perhaps most notably Céline Dion. The verse of the tune is based on the second movement of Sergi Rachmaninov‘s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. While Carmen’s original did not include a key change, most contemporary covers, including the 2007 version featured here by the pop male vocal group Il Divo, do (you can find it at 3:12.)