Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge How do you create this effect when composing for the Piano?

Hi everyone
This is quite hard to explain. But if you listen to this piece...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iGdcz3Fr2g
around 0:40 - 0:44, here how the chord progression sounds as if it's about to modulate, and like it's using a note/chord from a different key, it's almost as if the music is 'lifting up', I can't think of a better way to describe it. Can anybody help me? Is it a particular chord used or something?
I hope this makes sense

Regards

It is using a note from the different key.

The music is introducing something new. For the first 40 seconds, it stays comfortably in Bb Major, touching occasionally its relative minor. From 0:35 on, it becomes more firmly attached to the minor key, and that chord -- the F# dim7, can also be thought D7b9 without the bass -- acts for the first time as the perfect fifth to the relative minor, giving us a first V-I progression in that key. Since the bass note, F#, is not part of the Bb major key, and as it comes as a progression from an F natural (= chromatic progression), I believe both elements contribute to the feeling that you are trying to describe.

Also 0:40 is the first time it introduce a new chord other than the straight major, the straight minor, and the minor seventh. Looking beyond that, at 0:50, it adds the suspension (Fsus2/A) -- this is actually a chord I use very often myself. Then, at 0:57, we hear for the first time the major seventh (EbMaj7). So all in all, I think the composer does a pretty good job to keep the music interesting over the first minute.

Thanks so much for you answer! HUGE help
Just one more question, what chord would you use to create this effect when writing in the key of G Major?

The chord I think you are talking about at :40 is a III which in G would be B major and resolves to vi (minor) and in the key of G that would be Em.

If you were to transpose that particular progression into your key, assuming that your piece started in G major going into E minor, then the chord would be D#dim7. The strict V-i progression going into the E minor would have been B-Em, but since you also want the chromatic progression in the bass line, you have to put D# at the bottom, coming from D major. Similar to above, this could also be interpreted as B7b9 without the bass. The flattened ninth flavour is optional, so you could either have D#dim7, or just a straight B7/D#, or even without the seventh (just B/D#). Depending on the context of your melody, one of them (and not necessarily the most complex one) will sound best. Good luck!