Think Baroque: Baroque Improvisation Tip #5 - Use Seamless Key Transitions

The purpose of this tip is to help you avoid abrupt key changes during the course of an improvisation. To explain how to make seamless transitions, I'll do my best to reverse engineer what's going through my mind during an improvisational key transition. Then I'll outline a couple techniques that might be helpful to you.

While improvising, if I want to transition to a specific new key that I have in mind, my first thought is to determine the sharps or flats that make-up the new key. My second thought performs a comparison of the new key to the key I'm currently in to determine what changes are needed. For example, I might ask myself if I need to add or remove sharps or flats from the key I'm currently in. If I'm transitioning from the key of C to the key of A, for example, I know I need to add three sharps (F#, C#, and G#). Once I have that information, I can begin the process of transitioning.

Transitioning during an improvisation involves strategically finding opportunities where I can inject one or more of the notes that comprise the new key. For example, I might ask myself the following:

Where is a good spot for me to inject the F#?
Can I modify the chord I'm about to play so that it uses an F#?
How can I get to the V chord of the new key so that I can resolve it to the I chord?
Will my chord modification idea make sense harmonically within the chord progression as a whole?

Once the F# is injected into the progression, the transition has begun and the key has changed. Now I can focus on either the C# or G# as a next step.

A few techniques come to mind to help with seamless transitions: (1) incremental chord modifications, (2) utilizing the circle of fifths, or (3) using a combination of both.

Incremental Chord Modifications

The first technique employs chord modifications that serve to change the overall direction of a chord progression. In effect, you're steering the chord progression, step-by-step (chord-by-chord, note-by-note), in the direction of your destination key. You might choose a shorter path to get you to your destinaion in a quicker and more direct manner, or you might instead opt for a longer path so that you can take your time getting to your destination. If you miss your turn, you can always move forward and find another path to your destination.

An example of a shorter path from the key of C to the key of A might look like the following.

C E7 A

In this particular example, I reach the V chord of the key of A in one step. That V chord sets me up to resolve to an A chord in the new key of A.

How do I know the transition from a C chord to an E chord makes sense harmonically within the chord progression?

The short answer: by how it sounds.

The long answer: I admit this part of the thought process is more difficult for me to write about since it's not something I actively think about while improvising. It's more experience at this point. But in an attempt to piece together evidence based on analysis and not sound, I'll start by mentioning the obvious, which is that the C chord is related to the E chord in that they both share the note "E". The final A chord also shares the E. The overall context of the progression is as follows.

Let's examine this three chord progression another way.

What we did here was replace the C major chord with an E minor chord. It's almost the same progression (except for the C that was moved to a B in the first chord). Comparing the first chord of both progressions, how does the E minor chord relate to the C major chord?

The VI chord in the key of E minor is C major.
The C major chord can be thought of as an E minor chord with an augmented 5th.

How does the E minor chord relate to the E major chord?

E major is a parallel major of E minor.

Therefore, we can safely assume that in the context of the above progression, a transition from a C major chord to an E major chord should make sense harmonically.

When it comes to the incremental chord modifications made, the C and G of the C triad were nudged to a B and G# respectively. This results in the V chord (E major chord) that we need in order to resolve to the I chord (A major chord).

Coming-up with an explanation for determining harmonic compatibility within a progression (using analytics, not sound) would be an interesting study for a future blog post. It's a topic that deserves a deeper analysis. Again, I don't do this type of analysis during an improvisation. I only know that transitional chords will fit together due to (1) experience, and (2) adapting an improvised progression to the sound of a modified chord.

At any rate, an example of a longer path from C to A might look like this:

C D7 E7 A F#m E A

Bm7

Each chord in the progression steers the progression closer to the destination key. Let's analyze this second example progression differently to see what's happening.

We start with a C chord.
The second chord is also a C chord, but with the 3rd in the bass. This third in the bass evokes a feeling of movement or momentum that initiates an unsettling of the chord.
The third chord begins a bass line upward walk and is the first in the progression to use one of the notes found in the key of A (the F#). The transition has begun.
The bass line walk continues upward to a G#, which is another note found in the key of A. This E chord (E7) represents the V chord of the key of A.
This chord is the resolved chord from the previous V chord. In this case, it's an A major chord. We've arrived at our destination key. But for the purpose of this example, but we'll optionally add a few more chords to solidify and make clear the new key we're in.
The F#m chord represents the VI chord in the key of A.
The Bm7 chord represents the ii chord in the key of A.
The E chord represents the V chord in the key of A.
The final A chord marks the end of a 1-6-2-5 progression.

In both examples above, the progression is setting itself up for a V-I resolution (ie: E-A) to solidify the key change.

Circle of Fifths

For the second technique, you can take advantage of using the circle of fifths to make your way around to your destination key (or get close to it). If the circle of fifths doesn't get you completely to your destination key, you can incorporate the incremental chord modification technique mentioned above to get you the rest of the way.

An example of using the circle of fifths to get you from the key of C to the key of A might look like this:

C Gsus4 Dsus4 Asus4 Esus4 A Bm7 E A

G D A E7 Esus4

Like in the previous examples, this particular example progression is also setting itself up for a V-I resolution (ie: E-A) to solidify the key change. The final chord progression is 2-5-1.

Practice

Play a chord in any key you want. Then challenge yourself to improvise your way to a destination key of your choice. The goal is not to get to your destination key in the shortest number of steps, but to get to your destination through a seamless transition. There are multiple paths you can take to get to your destination.

Summary

Hopefully these techniques will help you improvise from one key to another seamlessly. If any additional techniques come to mind, or if I think the example techniques above need to be modified, I'll be sure to update this blog entry.

Don't be fooled by the companion video: I didn't just sit down and improvise all eleven example transitions in two minutes with ease in the first half of the video. Finding what I felt to be the most appropriate examples for the video took some trial-and-error and many wrong turns.