I'm Adam Manus, and I'm Peter Martin, and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.

Today we're going to talk about four ways to change keys during a tune without sounding too lame.

How about, is there a way we can do this without sounding lame at all?

Or are we just going for not too lame? No, you're always going to sound a little lame. We're going to talk about the four ways to sound the least amount of lame when you're changing keys. So we're just trying to minimize risk at this point. We're not eliminating risk. No, I'm kidding. I actually am a firm believer that changing keys can be a very powerful musical device. And here's some ways to do it that I think are not lame at all. Lameless. Lameless. So the first one, this is an old trick that jazz musicians have been doing for a long time, and that's the up a minor third trick, right? Do we call that one the old up a minor third trick? That's what we're going to call the old upper minor third trick. It sounds like a card trick that a guy on a boardwalk would try to

like pull on something. Yeah. Here's the old upper minor third trick. Or like a like a directions

to a moonshine establishment in North Carolina. You just go up a minor third. And then the establishment

is there. That's right. Yeah, yeah. And then the establishment is there.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is, I mean, some people literally will play the head of a tune and then play it again up a minor third.

So like you play whatever, you know, time after time and C and you play it again in E flat.

And then, you know, Bill Evans would do this where he would, he would do it in the solo as part of the form. Like he would do the first half in C and the second half in E flat and then go back to C when the head came back around. Right. And I think, I'm thinking of another one that's sort of related to the old up a minor third trick and that's the old up a major third trick

which isn't used as much but it kind of works nice as well sounds really good actually a little kind

of modern thing and i just realized billy childs does that yeah on a great arrangement he did for

diane reeves of embracable you yeah yeah yeah eat eflap major and then this the piano solo or

guitar solo is in g major i didn't even think about that old

up a major third trick but that is a good one like a old cousin of each other i would say um okay so

another way not to sound too lame uh with with the changing key is to go down a half step

um and so this has a certain hip characteristic to it in that

it's just like all things hip or hipster. It's the opposite of what you would expect. Yeah, this is a

modern thing for sure. Yeah, instead of shaving, grow a beard. So this would be, you know,

normally kind of the Hollywood thing is to go up a half a step but this is to go down a half step

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