Gospel Church | Anthem of Praise

” … composer, pianist, and arranger Richard Smallwood has clearly and solidly changed the face of gospel music,” (Kennedy Center). “He can impeccably blend classical movements with traditional gospel, and arrive at a mix that is invariably Smallwood’s alone. A diverse and innovative artist, Richard Smallwood has achieved many honors; Dove Awards and a Grammy also attest to his talents … Smallwood has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution as a ‘gospel innovator and songwriter,’ and his hometown, Washington, D.C. heralded two separate occasions as ‘Richard Smallwood Day,’ also, distinguishing him with the Mayoral Art Award for ‘precision and excellence in artistic discipline.'”

… His debut album, The Richard Smallwood Singers, spent 87 weeks on Billboard’s Gospel chart. “The next project, Psalms, received a Grammy nomination. Two years later, another nomination for Textures, the album that contained the classic ‘The Center of My Joy,’ penned by Richard Smallwood along with Bill and Gloria Gaither.” His career has only grown from there.

Gospel Church, a prominent French gospel ensemble, produced this video performance of Smallwood’s “Anthem of Praise” in late 2023. After a cinematic instrumental intro establishes the piece in Bb minor, the choir enters at 1:03. At 3:33, the arrangement transitions to Bb major; from there, there are half-step upward modulations with each successive vocal soloist, eventually landing in Db major. The final few seconds bring an emphasis on the original Bb, now clearly the implied relative minor even in the absence of any chord color.

Seal | The Beginning

“… on his debut album (1991), Seal is an ambiguous, mercurial entity—not so much a singer as a pure source of heat and light,” (Pitchfork) “For all the marvels of his voice, the music surrounding him is just as opulent; his singing is just one thread in a vast tapestry of crushed velvet, raw silk, and spun gold. (To paraphrase Project Runway host Heidi Klum, who was married to Seal from 2005 until 2012, it sounds expensive.)

… Though Seal had already written some of the album’s songs on guitar, in (producer Trevor) Horn’s hands, the material became far more ornate. (On) ‘The Beginning,’ the album’s most straightforward club-centric cut … Horn manages a more multidimensional sense of space; light-years stretch between the string pads, funk guitars, and layered percussion … From the first moment we hear Seal arcing upward across the stereo field, it’s clear that Horn knew exactly how precious this particular instrument was … Seal may have idolized literary writers like Dylan and Mitchell, but you don’t come to Seal for poetry; you come for that voice and the way it navigates Horn’s productions, like a bird surfing springtime’s swirling air currents.”

The lush percussion layers of “The Beginning,” repeated nearly to the point of trance, suddenly disappear as an unexpected downward modulation kicks in between 3:30 and 3:46, returning as the tonality returns to the original key.

I See Stars (from “Mean Girls”)

The 2004 teen comedy film Mean Girls was adapted into a musical in 2018, featuring a score by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin and a book by Tina Fey (who also wrote the original screenplay.) “I See Stars” is the finale of the show. A film adaptation of the musical will be released tomorrow.

The song begins in A and modulates up to Bb at 2:55.

38 Special | Second Chance

“38 Special guitarist Jeff Carlisi wrote “Second Chance” with the Los Angeles songwriter Cal Curtis … It was the biggest chart hit for 38 Special; while it didn’t have the Classic Rock staying power of their songs like “Caught Up In You” and “Hold On Loosely,” it was the biggest Adult Contemporary hit of 1989,” (Songfacts). “… When Billboard published their list of the top AC songs of all time in 2011, this came in at #24.”

The song was the highest-charting Hot 100 single the band ever produced, peaking at #6 and spending 21 weeks on the chart. The song hit #5 on the Singles Sales chart, #9 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, #2 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and became the band’s first No.1 single on the Adult Contemporary chart. It later became Billboard magazine’s Adult Contemporary Song of the Year for 1989 (Billboard).

The midtempo tune starts in Bb major and shifts up a half-step with a very late modulation at 4:05, well after the bridge.

Kate Yeager | Keep My Distance

American singer/songwriter Kate Yeager has performed at Radio City and Lincoln Center, and will be out on tour next month. “Furthering the lineage of artists like Carol King, Tracey Chapman, and Janis Joplin,” Yeager’s YouTube bio reads, “25-year old Kate Yeager’s lyrics and soul-infused vocals transcend stats, trends and ages.”

Her single “Keep My Distance” was released in 2019. It begins in F, modulates up half step to Gb at 2:28, and then another half step up to G at 3:00.

George Frideric Handel | Messiah (fail)

Now that the holidays are over, it’s perhaps the least distasteful time of the year to post this monumental gaffe by an organist accompanying Handel’s Messiah (1741). This error wouldn’t have been possible during Handel’s lifetime, when the “transposition” function on pipe organs was still a few hundred years in the future. It all adds up to a category of “unintentional modulation” — one which we hope won’t grow much over time!

“Performing under pressure is hard, and there’s no doubt that accompanying a full choir is stressful even for the most unflappable of musicians,” (ClassicFM). “But this is just… something else.

During a performance of Handel’s Messiah, at that crucial moment at the end of the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus when the choir and organ come together in four glorious final chords, this organist completely loses it. It seems they accidentally pressed the ‘transpose’ function on their instrument, only-just-and-only-sort-of recovering it by adding an unexpected seventh at the end, before finally landing on the tonic chord. We can all agree the choir deserves a huge pat on the back for holding it together.” The video is only 0:44 long; in the interest of safety, make sure you’re sitting down by about the 0:20 mark.

Bryan Adams | Summer of ’69

“Bryan Adams’ smash hit ‘Summer of ‘69’ comes from the 1984 studio album Reckless,” (American Songwriter). “Shortly after its release, the single climbed to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped push Reckless to the #1 position on the Billboard 200 album chart in August 1985.  

‘I wanted to capture a special energy on the track—and nearly lost my team doing it. I basically fought with everyone until it became the way it is today. It wasn’t easy getting it there. I had no idea it would become such a classic,” admits Adams. ‘Originally the song had been called The Best Days of My Life, but we had always played around with the idea of writing a song about summertime. At one point while we were doing the demo, I just threw in the lyric It was the summer of ’69 and it stuck. And the guitar intro is about the only thing I can play, so that was pretty easy.'”

The tune is built in D major overall, with a bridge that shifts to F major (1:41 – 1:55) before an interlude returns us to the original key.

The Piano Guys | Can’t Help Falling In Love With You

“Jon fell in love with this song when he heard the reggae cover by UB40, one of his favorite bands,” The Piano Guys write on their website. “His arranging style often reflects the influence of the classical music and training with which he was raised. These two elements collide in this arrangement. (Think Beethoven meets UB40 with a little tounge-in-cheek thrown in for fun).

Their cover of this song, originally popularized by Elvis, is the penultimate track on their 2013 album The Piano Guys 2. It begins in C and modulates to D at 2:05.

Howard Jones | Hide and Seek

UK native songwriter/performer Howard Jones’ career blossomed with his signature single, “Things Can Only Get Better.” That uptempo tune, which acknowledges life’s complexities but maintains an infectiously positive attitude, seems to have set the tone for Jones’ career. From a 2022 interview with 48Hills: “‘From the first album, the first single, I wanted the music and the lyrics to be of use to people to help them get through difficult times in the same way that music helped me. It had been such a comfort and an inspiration to me as I was growing up … I was consciously writing the music for the times when people, including myself, needed a boost, to get over some really difficult situation that life is constantly throwing at us … we need everyone on this planet to be functioning at their highest, most positive level if we’re going to overcome the difficulties we’re facing.'”

“Howard looks at the big picture in this song, where he goes back to the big bang and asks us to remember a time when there was ‘nothing at all, just a distant hum,'” (Songfacts). “Howard Jones performed ‘Hide and Seek’ at Live Aid in 1985 on Freddie Mercury’s piano.” Stepping the tempo up noticeably compared to the studio version of this ballad, Jones somehow gathered the courage to perform this track solo at the piano amidst Live Aid’s otherwise saturated aural textures and huge bands. The transatlantic concert was witnessed by 70,000+ audience members in London and 80,000+ for the US set; “an estimated audience of 1.9 billion, in 150 nations, nearly 40% of the world population” viewed the broadcast on TV or listened via radio (CNN).

After an intro and a verse in D minor, the chorus lifts the mood with a shift to D major (first heard from 1:52 – 2:23) before reverting to the hook-driven minor interlude and verse. The connective tissue in the transition from minor to major is a prominent Dsus4.