Song Help Request Help with theory behind Stevie Wonder's "Lately"

Hi,
I'm having trouble figuring out the key change in "lately" by Stevie Wonder. I know the chords. But I read that there is a key change in the chorus where he takes it up 3 steps, and I don't get it. Modulation is still kind of a mystery to me. I think it might click if I could understand how modulation I'm already playing works. Could someone shed some light on this for me? Sorry if this is the wrong section. Wasn't sure where to go with this
Thanks

Hey, very nice tune that I haven't heard in some time...

I took a quick look at it, and I will probably write a more detailed breakdown for you... but in the mean time:

Stevie wrote this tune in the key of Db Major. I'm not sure what key you are playing it in - but it really doesn't matter. The verse follows a very common I-vi-ii-V-I kind of pattern (with a little repetition of the ii-v cadence). Yes, the tune modulates up a fourth at the chorus. This is a very common device... why? Let's take a look...

Harmony is a play on tension (oooooo) and release (aaaaaaaaah). When you move away from the "tonic" (the root chord of the key - Db in this case) you create tension. Where you move to will determine the degree of tension. The release comes when you return to the tonic. The most common release comes from transition from the V chord back to I. In the key of C major (the people's key) that would be G to C or G7 to C. This tension concept also applies to entire sections of the song. In this case, the key of the chorus moves away from Db - then returns later.

In most cases, you don't want to stray too far, because the tension will be too jarring and extreme. So many tunes will go to the fourth... because the I chord is the V chord in that key. (Stay with me here...) In C major, F is the IV chord - but in F major, C is the V chord. So a typical transition would be C followed by C7 (which signals the key change) and then to F (the tonic f the new key). In this tune, Stevie goes from Db (I) to Db9 (V of new key) to Gb6 (I of new key - IV of old key).

Stevie does not stay still at Gb major, however, but I don't have the time right now to break it down further. I will try to take another look later. I hope that this is the information that you were looking for.

Edit: Oh, and I should probably add that the entire piece modulates at the end of the second chorus... I will have to address that later.

Thanks Wicked! This is exactly the information I was looking for. Very well worded too. I'll take this and try and figure out the rest. However, if you do get time to dig a little deeper, I'd really appreciate it. I really want to understand how this works for my own music. I can write a melodic line that modulates intuitively, but finding the new key to grab the chords from is where I always get stuck. Then my head explodes, and it's game over. I feel like i'm 2 steps away from that "ah-ha" moment after reading this tho. Thanks again!

Well said by Wicked.
I think a part of what makes modulations so confusing is the lack of consistency in terminology and consensus on what a modulation is or isn't.
There are two main schools of thought, the classical (Bach-Brahms-Stravinsky) and the pop/commercial.
This song is a pop song so I like to think in those terms. This song does in fact modulate, but only at the very in of the piece. We could do as most pop musicians and say it 'changes keys.' Important also is that the song ends in the new key and doesn't go back to the original, which almost never happens in classical music.
In pop terms, the D9 that Wicked was talking about is a secondary dominant (V of IV) and isn't really a key change until the last chorus. In classical music, a lot of scholars would view this as a modulation or tonicization. In pop it is a pretty standard way of raising tension and adding color, but not a key change if it goes back to the home key within several bars.

This is in no way an argument against anything Wicked posted, as what was said is correct. Merely hoping this might help you on your way to the 'ah-ha' moment! I love those!! )

( o)==::

i dont quite understand what hss been said...but would reslly appreciate if you can share the tabs

Maguwa: I think I understand what you're saying. If I have this right, the kay change is happening during the pre-chorus (I'm a man of many wishes...) Then goes back to Db for the chorus. Accept on the last chorus (which is what inspired this post haha!) Am I getting there?

1300cc: I can't post links yet. It'll be your first hit if you google it tho. And I posted a tab for the intro in this section of the forum earlier today. Awesome song to jam

What Maguwa said is correct. The chorus is not really a full on modulation. The difference between Db major and Gb major scales is only one note, so you're not really playing too much outside the original key..... it just gives it a different "feel." This actually occurs a couple times before returning to a solid Db major for the verse.

At the end of the second chorus, there is a full on modulation to Gb major.... although Stevie kind of tricks you into thinking you're in Cb major when he modulates (Cb being the IV of Gb major)... and then he really pulls a fast one by ending the song with an Eb maj 7 rather than on the tonic (Gb) which is outside entirely, but ends up sounding very nice.

That's sort of the key factor of great songs... breaking the rules just enough to not sound formulaic. Computers can generate tunes using algorithms that sound pleasant, but never sound great. It is in our nature to be drawn to the breaks from the formula. That seems to be true for melody (the chromatic scale was given its name because the notes that do not fall within the diatonic scale add "color" to the tune), harmony (as we see here), as well as rhythm (syncopation draws us in by placing the beat in an unexpected location).

I feel motivated to tab this one up... give me a day or so, 1300cc, and I will upload it and put a link here. Fair warning... I will keep it in the original key. I am not big on "dumbing it down" for the ukulele. Truth be told, it really won't be any more difficult to play - that's the beauty of fretted instruments.

AH-HAAAAA!!!! I think I got it now! It won't be official until I draw up my own example and make it work, but I didn't even have enough of a grasp on the subject to create an example when we started. My thanks to you Wicked! And Thank you as well for the bonus ah-ha moment Maguwa! I had no clue what a "secondary dominant" was so I looked it up, and that answered a lot of questions for me too.

I agree about not dumbing down songs for the uke. I usually take tabs or youtube tuts and trick um out later lol!

I aim to please.

Ok I jumped the gun, it's still not clicking. I understand the explanation, and was able to write a basic example that sounded ok. I still don't see it in the song tho. From the verse to the chorus we have: (basically) verse- Db Bbm Gb Ab Ebm Db Db7
pre- Gb Gbm Db Ab
chorus- Ebm Fm Gbm Ab Db

Very bare bones chording, but it will work in this case. I see a couple minor chords that should be major if we're sticking to Db, and the Fm doesn't belong. Based on the information you guys shared with me I know that the Db7 chord is our cue that the key change is next. So if I have this right, we're in Gb starting with the pre-chorus and there's an Fm in the Chorus so we're still in Gb there. the progression is- I i IV II -chorus- vi vii i II IV (or I in Db ?)
Some where in there we end up back in Db, but I can't figure out where. I've come across a lot of songs that throw in the minors that should be majors, and the reverse. And there's a lot of that going on here. I think the answer's in there some where, and I know i'm close. just can't see it. Using this basic version can you complete the puzzle for me?
Thanks for hangin in there with me guys

Harmonic analysis is a bit subjective, but here's my take on those chords:

The verse chords are mostly all in Db major. No problem there. You do have the Db7 at the end, which doesn't so much signal an out-and-out key change (i.e. modulation)... it really just puts you in a "key of the moment" of Gb and strongly leads the ear to the Gb chord. But at that point, you sort of quickly pivot back into the main key. This sort of temporary shift to another key's harmony is very common in the jazz/tin-pan-alley sort of idiom that Stevie often writes in. Especially when it's a dominant seventh chord that "sets up" the next chord a fifth down.

If I had to give that chord a functional name, I wouldn't label it I7, but rather V7/IV. That is, it's the "five-seven of the four chord".

For the prechorus, we're also mostly in Db land. But the Gbm actually comes from another key--in this case the minor version of Db, which is also the Aeolian mode of Db. We called this situation "modal interchange" back in school, but I've also heard the term "borrowed chord". This particular case of modal interchange where the IV chord transitions to the IV minor chord is also very common. (The Beatles loved this one... check out "In My Life", for example)

In the chorus, Stevie again swaps in that Gb minor, although this time it's a bit more unexpected. The other chords are all diatonic to Db.

Anyway, the point is that these "outside the main key" chords don't really represent a true modulation or key change. They're just temporary little harmonic diversions that make things a bit more interesting/exciting/hip. You're still considered to be "in Db" (although you should definitely take "keys of the moment" into account when soloing over the chords!)

JJ

Edited to add: Just pulled up the song an listened to it. There's actually a bit more going on that just the chords that Squintz posted above. My analysis of the Squintz chords is correct, but there's more to it in the actual song (other non-diatonic chords are snuck in, etc.)

Perhaps we can simplify things a bit....

Stevie's chord progression loosely parallels "Rhythm Changes" (the chords from George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm"). He starts on I, jumps up to vi, then follows the circle of fifths back around to I. He does take a slight detour on the way playing that little walking line around the ii (I-vi-ii-V-ii-iimaj7-ii7-V-I) he follows that a second time, then goes for the slightly different feel into Gb territory with the I-I9-IV-iv (which Gershwin also did in "I Got Rhythm".) Stevie then uses a walking bass progression iii-ii-iii-iv-V7... which brings the feel back to Db major, and on to the second verse.

The second time through the chorus, he uses some passing chords to arrive at Gb7, then on to Cb - repeating the chorus in the new key. At first glance, it looks like he went to Cb major, but since it is like the other times through the chorus, Cb is standing in as the IV - so we are actually in Gb major.

At the very end, where he sings "good-bye", he returns to Gb (I) then does a little turn around (vi-IV-ii-V)... but then he fakes you out with the final Ebmaj7 which is completely outside, but somehow satisfying.

Edit: I guess I was typing while JJ was posting.... All very good points. His comment on "Key of the Moment" is especially important.

Thanks for your input JJ.

I've learned a lot from the discussion here. I think I'll be returning often to read thru and soak it all in. I've realized something that I failed to consider tho. Stevie had 20 years as a professional musician under his belt before he wrote that song. Maybe this is a case of the 3 year old tryin to drink from the big boy cup HAHA! My hands just aren't big enough to wrap around this yet.

Leaving the science behind for a moment, and looking at it thru an artistic lense. This song is very emotionally driven. I imagine during the writing process he was focused more on creating that beautiful tension then making sure everything "made sense" musically. A license earned from decades of writing music. A lot of chords that have no business in the same progresion are only a few notes apart. And when you start getting into 9s, 11s, and even 13s, chords can have many other names. Ex: C13 can also be called A#M7b5. Move your pinky down a fret and it's now some other big chord (no clue folks). All this to say, the question I asked was much bigger then I realized.
I'm like a White Belt asking Bruce Lee why I can't get the one inch punch down HAHA!
I think the only way for me to really GET it is to study more songs with this kind of movement, and keep writing
That's one thing I love about music. Several ah-ha moments later I realize I've got a ways to go before I get the one I was after.

The theory is nice to know/understand, but it is not critical to your artistic endeavors. Irving Berlin was the most prolific and successful composer in American history, and knew almost nothing about harmonization. He would write the melody and the lyrics, then pay someone else to work out the harmony.

Berlin could only play the piano in the key of C, by the way. He had a specially built piano that could change keys with a mechanical lever.

To paraphrase Miles Davis.... A musician should learn all about music theory - and then forget it.

Squintz said:

Thanks for your input JJ.

I've learned a lot from the discussion here. I think I'll be returning often to read thru and soak it all in. I've realized something that I failed to consider tho. Stevie had 20 years as a professional musician under his belt before he wrote that song. Maybe this is a case of the 3 year old tryin to drink from the big boy cup HAHA! My hands just aren't big enough to wrap around this yet.

Leaving the science behind for a moment, and looking at it thru an artistic lense. This song is very emotionally driven. I imagine during the writing process he was focused more on creating that beautiful tension then making sure everything "made sense" musically. A license earned from decades of writing music. A lot of chords that have no business in the same progresion are only a few notes apart. And when you start getting into 9s, 11s, and even 13s, chords can have many other names. Ex: C13 can also be called A#M7b5. Move your pinky down a fret and it's now some other big chord (no clue folks). All this to say, the question I asked was much bigger then I realized.
I'm like a White Belt asking Bruce Lee why I can't get the one inch punch down HAHA!
I think the only way for me to really GET it is to study more songs with this kind of movement, and keep writing
That's one thing I love about music. Several ah-ha moments later I realize I've got a ways to go before I get the one I was after.

Click to expand...

I think it is worth noting here that harmonic analysis is quite subjective (JJ already touched on this) and is rooted in the musical understanding of the analyzer. Hence, all of us classically training musicians gravitate towards understand harmony using dominant and tonic as the quintessential representation of tension and release (what Wicked mentioned in his first post). Jazz, rock and blues musicians may view things through a slightly different lens where the tonic and dominant relationship, while still important, is more apt to be purposefully corrupted or entirely circumvented.

What i'm getting at is that the relationship of tension and release is central to all music. The reason that different people, particularly when viewing music with a different cultural or temporal lens, understand harmonic relationships so dissimilarly is that, over time, listeners/composers/musicians have become accustomed to harmonic relationships that would have been jarring and tension-producing to their predecessors. This is why we have such differing descriptions of this same piece of music when we look at it as 18th century musicians (ie: classical) or as 20th century musicians (ie: jazz/blues). This is also why new composers or song-writers start to break the rules. They aim to establish a new, more aggressive tension that will capture their listeners attention in a way the old sounds, to which the listeners have become overly-accumstomed, do not.

So, Squintz, I think you might be underestimating how much you can understand. Music theory and harmonic analysis have always been things done after-the-fact to describe existing music; there were already established norms for what people heard as tension and release, someone just described and codified what they heard and call it "the rules of harmony".

With that in mind, I absolutely hear what you are saying when you describe Stevie as having 'earned a license' to break the rules; he certainly is awesome enough to get away with just about anything. However, I think that this might be the wrong way to look at it. It's not that he earned the right to break the rules, rather he just wrote music that sounded good to his sense of tension and release. Perhaps "the rules" of harmony just hadn't caught up yet...

So, don't worry what anyone says about the rules, just understand that any particular set of rules are simply a snap-shot of a particular person's or society's sense of what sounds like tension and release. They are constantly in flux. In fact, this change has only increased as more and more different types of music have become available to more and more people.

All that being said, if there is one "rule" of harmony to understand, it's that the tonic reflects the feeling of release and comfort, while everything else (dominant and pre-dominant or whatever language you want to use) reflects tension needing resolution. While many, multiple exceptions exist, I personally feel that almost all music, from about 1400 CE up until the present day, holds the tonic/dominant relationship as central to tension and release.
*** Caveat - my last statement no doubt reveals my western-centrism. I am not at all knowledgable about music from traditions other than the West.


Well, it looks like I got a little carried away with that. I can only hope that my diatribe amused and engaged! This thread has been fascinating. Thanks.

I see what you are saying Jamie. I'm really gonna get off track here, but I can't help it. It's like if you got in a time machine and went back and grabbed, I don't know, Mozart and dropped him in front of a piano in a 1950's night club. A musical genius in his own right he would have had a tough time backing up Donald Byrd and the band. I imagine they would have looked at him like that scene in "Adventures in Babysitting" when they walk into the blues club haha! Just an interesting thought your comments inspired

Ukulele JJ said:

Edited to add: Just pulled up the song an listened to it. There's actually a bit more going on that just the chords that Squintz posted above. My analysis of the Squintz chords is correct, but there's more to it in the actual song (other non-diatonic chords are snuck in, etc.)

Click to expand...

Yeah, I just rushed them up there so I didn't lose my train of thought. Hope that didn't confuse anyone.

Squintz said:

I see what you are saying Jamie. I'm really gonna get off track here, but I can't help it. It's like if you got in a time machine and went back and grabbed, I don't know, Mozart and dropped him in front of a piano in a 1950's night club. A musical genius in his own right he would have had a tough time backing up Donald Byrd and the band. I imagine they would have looked at him like that scene in "Adventures in Babysitting" when they walk into the blues club haha! Just an interesting thought your comments inspired

Click to expand...

I think that Mozart would have caught in pretty fast. People in his category just have brains that are wired to make music of any style. The truly Classical Period was all about conforming to specific forms. Imagine what Mozart could have produced if he was not constrained by what the public expected. We know that he was experimenting with syncopation and extended chords. If he had been exposed to the African and Afro-Cuban rhythmic influences that shaped all of the American forms he would have probably created some scorching stuff.

Wicked said:

I think that Mozart would have caught in pretty fast. People in his category just have brains that are wired to make music of any style. The truly Classical Period was all about conforming to specific forms. Imagine what Mozart could have produced if he was not constrained by what the public expected. We know that he was experimenting with syncopation and extended chords. If he had been exposed to the African and Afro-Cuban rhythmic influences that shaped all of the American forms he would have probably created some scorching stuff.

Click to expand...

I agree that having Mozart around today would be pretty fantastic, also there's no doubt he would catch on pretty fast to more modern styles. However, I would argue that he would still be constrained today. As a whole, we are definitely more open to different harmonies than we were in the 18th century but we are not totally free from societally-constructed harmonic norms.
If anything, I think plopping Mozart into the first half of the 20th century with the serialists would have produced music that was even farther out there. However, no matter when or where you put him, he would still be somehow constrained by the understanding of his audience. Put in the Baroque and he'd be writing Dance Suites, Operas or Oratorios. While these might not use the same kind of phrase to phrase balancing that exists in the Classical, the dance forms themselves are pretty rigid. Throw him back farther into the Renaissance and he'd be constrained by more simplistic harmonies (Gesualdo being the big exception) and a need to craft his music to very carefully reflect and support the lyrics. Move him to the era of Blues and Jazz and he'd be playing with various, specific styles and harmonic organizations (i.e.: 12 bar blues, etc).

Going back to your comment on the Classical Period being all about conforming to specific forms, I was wondering how cognizant Classical composers like Mozart or Haydn were of these forms. Clearly, they knew how they worked and how to play with them (i'm thinking of something like Haydn's String Quartet "The Joke"). But, were they thinking "I'm going to compose a piece of music in the Classical style with all it's form and balance" or did they simply just say to themselves "I'm going compose something great and perhaps play with my audience's expectations" (as in "The Joke")?

I know it's old hat to say that music is a language. But, let's say it is and then take it farther and say that different harmonic styles are like different dialects. One might make an analogy to "The Joke" quartet I just referenced: without knowing the dialect of the Classical Period, one won't get the joke. In fact, because I am not an avid Classical fan, I only get the most blatant joke Haydn makes, like right at the very end of the piece. I am not conversant enough in the Classical dialect to get the more subtle plays he makes.
Returning to your comment, Squintz, about Mozart not being able to back up Byrd and the Band, I'd argue that he'd only be having trouble because he didn't yet know the dialect. Give him a few days or hours to learn, and he'd be on top of it.



sorry to keep taking this so far off the original topic...
apologies

No apologies necessary Jamie. I think you and Wicked have brought us back on track with the original topic. As I am sure Mozart would have caught on in no time, and been jammin right along. It would take me months to keep up with the band (without tabs haha). This is because Mozart had a very keen understanding of the language, and would only have to shift what he normally does into the new dialect.
I guess that's why I want to understand the theory behind what Stevie is doing with "Lately". The kinds of movements and harmonies he's using are fascinating to me and I'm looking for a base line understanding of how these harmonies work so I can experiment and add to my own music. I'm definitely in my way.