Editing Modulation (music) (section)

{{Short description|Change from one tonality to another}}{{redirects here|Modulating|other uses|Modulation (disambiguation)}}{{redirects here|Changing Keys|the Merv Griffin composition|Wheel of Fortune (American game show){{!}}''Wheel of Fortune'' (American game show)}}
[[File:Modulation vocal music example duple labelled.png|thumb|Example of modulation from the tonic to the dominant.<ref>Boston Academy of Music, Lowell Mason<!--, George James Webb--> (1836). ''The Boston Academy's Collection of Church Music'', pp. 16–18. Fourth edition. <!--Publishers:-->J. H. Wilkins and R. B. Carter.</ref>{{audio|Modulation vocal music example duple.mid|Play}}]]
[[File:Key change example.png|thumb|''Key signature change'' example: C major to C minor.]]

In [[music]], '''modulation''' is the change from one tonality ([[tonic (music)|tonic]], or [[tonality|tonal center]]) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in [[key signature]] (a '''key change'''). Modulations articulate or create the structure or [[musical form|form]] of many pieces, as well as add interest. Treatment of a [[chord (music)|chord]] as the tonic for less than a [[phrase (music)|phrase]] is considered [[tonicization]].

{{quote|Modulation is the essential part of the art. Without it there is little music, for a piece derives its true beauty not from the large number of fixed modes which it embraces but rather from the subtle fabric of its modulation.|Charles-Henri Blainville (1767)<ref>Forte, Allen (1979). ''Tonal Harmony in Concept & Practice'', p. 265. {{ISBN|0-03-020756-8}}.</ref>|}}