on february 23rd 2016 celine dion gave a performance of her classic power ballad
all by myself to a packed room at caesar's palace in las vegas she sang the climactic high e flat
on the word anymore when the key changes up a diminished fourth from g major to c flat major
and the crowd went wild but there was something there's something in the music that was just
too much and celine had to stop singing this moment i feel perfectly encapsulates music's
narrative role its ability to tell a story in a way that makes you feel it on a physical level and
the way that all by myself does this is through a very clever key change it's an example of
modal mixture common tone and harmonic double chromatic mediant modulation and don't worry
we're going to spend today parsing that jargon dump but just because western music theory can
throw a lot of words at a moment doesn't mean that we really get into the emotional resonance of it
so if we're going to understand what happened on that stage in february of 2016 we're going
to need to go a little deeper we're going to need to go deeper if we're going to understand
the greatest key change in pop music this video is brought to you by curiosity stream and
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live
the song all by myself was written and composed by the former front man of the raspberries the singer
eric carmen who wrote the song's verses based on the second movement of rachmaninoff's second piano
concerto he wrote the verses this way thinking that rachmaninoff's music was in the public domain
but turns out it wasn't so he was forced to give rachmaninoff's a state writing credit on the song
which technically means that all by myself is the russian composer and pianist sergey rachmaninoff's
best-selling hit single when celine dion sings all by myself live she generally sings it in
the key of g major which is a fairly bright sound all things considered however there is harmony in
the song which is borrowed from the parallel minor g minor which is a fairly dark sound
when you go back and forth between major and minor light and dark you call that modal mixture which
is the first part of the jargon that we mentioned earlier now there's one note in particular that
does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to modal mixture and that is this bad boy right here
the flat six e flat when you take harmony from dark g minor that features the e flat like a minor
seven flat five and c minor and you resolve those dark sounds to a bright g major you get a chord
progression which has this powerfully wistful quality to it the harmony seems to be culturally
coded to feelings of bitter sweetness and the past likely because of its use and cadences
from american musical theater and tin pen alley songs from the early half of the 20th century
since these popular songs have primarily lived on in popular culture through christmas music
this harmony has a certain meme connotation but for right now we're going to call it
the nostalgia note the flat 6 is the nostalgia note nostalgia now if we take a look at the
versus lyrics we see that they pair very nicely with this bittersweet affect that we have come
to associate with these kinds of chords in major keys the phrasing of these lyrics is
a little unusual though in that they are paired with an asymmetrical five bar verse pattern the
first of these phrases is a short statement on the note b the third note of g major
the second phrase is a slight elaboration also ending on the note b but now paired
with one of those bittersweet chords a minor 7 flat 5 over g which features the e flat
the third phrase is the variation on the second phrase except this time we end on the note a
it's also been displaced by a beat giving the melody more of a conversational bent
this leads to the final phrase which uh ends on the note g those things are gone the target
tones of each phrase spell out b a g three two one three blind mice it's a very shankarian melody if
that's your thing but i think it's more important to note the asymmetrical conversational phrasing
of the rhythm and also the fact that it's all paired with this nostalgic harmony
nostalgia the end of every verse has this fantastic piano counter
melody which is like a secondary melody that supports the main melody
which carmen borrowed directly from the second movement of rachmaninoff's second piano concerto
this counter melody ends on just like the most delightful ritardando like a slowdown
of the tempo which makes the drum fill into the chorus feel just that much more epic
god i love that effect uh more bands should do that i know it can be kind of cheesy but uh it's
such a it's such a vibe such a vibe now this chorus of all by myself is loosely inspired by
another one of eric carmen's songs let's pretend from the band the raspberries let's pretend was a
nice melody that song didn't go quite as far as i thought it should have i'll go back and steal for
myself for this this stolen chorus starts on a g major chord the one chord we then go up to a three
minor a b minor chord followed by a very dramatic motion down a tritone to a d minor over f which
resolves very nicely to an e7 sus4 to an e7 chord the five seven of two chord it points to the two
chord it wants to resolve to the coot the q chord the q chord the q chord ku chord ku chord the ii
chord we then get a minor the ii chord uh followed by c minor over e flat which is that nostalgia
note which is the four minor chord in the key of g followed by our d7 our five seven chord
this harmony is borrowed directly from rachmaninoff's second piano concerto the second
movement and is a fantastic example of a chord sequence it's the same chord progression twice
it's just that the second time that we hear the chord progression it's been moved down
a step it's the same chord progression twice it's just that the second time we hear the
chord progression it's been moved down a step and this is a great way of telling a story through a
musical arrangement we're expecting some kind of resolution we're like going towards a destination
the destination of the sequence is at the end of the chorus with the completion of the lyric
don't want to be by myself anymore which is a very matter-of-fact sentiment it's just
the narrator stating their desires but in this case the simplicity of it is by design
eric carman would write the lyrics are as simple as i could possibly make them
sometimes my melodies are so dramatic that if the lyric is that dramatic it's overkill
carmen's original song doesn't feature a climactic modulation on the last chorus although there is
this very nice piano interlude that changes keys quite frequently but the real secret
sauce to the song and the thing that many people associate with it is that climactic key change
now this is where the song changes key what we call the modulation
changing key at an emotional climax has been a big part of popular song so much
in fact that if done unartfully it can feel cheesy and unearned and overly sentimental but
there are many great examples of it being done right beyonce's love on top whitney houston's
i will always love you john bon jovi is living on a prayer and many many others
that people suggested in a great twitter thread on modulation there are many kinds of modulation but
all by myself features a common tone modulation the next piece of the jargon puzzle a single
sustained tone bridges the gap between the two keys in this case the common tone is e flat
that flat 6 nostalgia note in the key of g that we've been talking about this whole time
nostalgia is actually the first time that we've heard the note in the melody but we've heard this
resolution of the flat 6 down to the 5 and that wistful nostalgic progression in the harmony many
times before in the verses and the choruses but in this case on a minor 7 flat 5 the nostalgia
note does not resolve nostalgically instead it transforms into the major third of the key of c
flat major now looking at the piano you might be thinking like why aren't we calling it b major c
flat seems unnecessarily pretentious well e flat is the third of the key of c flat d sharp
is the third of the key of b and yes they sound the same d sharp and e flat are the same thing
on our equal tempered keyboard but they're very different kinds of associations and feelings and
affects that are associated with d sharp in the key of g d sharp the sharp five goes up e flat
the flat six the nostalgia note goes down so we call the key that we're changing to
c flat major and not b major because the note that's sustained between the two keys is an e
flat and e flat is the third note of the key of c flat this seems like splitting hairs right now
but there are a lot of associations that we feel when we call a note e flat versus d sharp and
if we don't make these clarifications now the modulation won't make sense in the future also
the just intonation police will come after me if i don't make this clarification so please please
don't come after me the decision to modulate on the last course to that high e flat can be traced
to david foster celine dion's producer and oft pianist david foster calls me i produced a song
for celine a few years ago that i i really am proud of this song the way it it turned out and
the way we we kind of changed it around i arrived to the studio said wait at the bridge i did a
little something and i was like is that the final the key that finishes is the key that we chose
right now he says it's a key and a half higher oh my god but i said david how could you do that
right she really got annoyed with because there's a particularly high note in this song which is
ridiculously high but he said if you can't do it there's other singers and those that can't
the high note at the climax of all by myself has been a preoccupation for many singers and singing
fans there are compilations of celine singing it throughout the years on youtube there are
many tick tocks of young singers attempting the high note so since this is an episode that
features a lot of singing i thought i would ask my voice teacher mom to shed some light
on some of the technique that goes into singing one of these climactic high notes
there's echo cass well i listened to three of her recordings i listened to 1996
made for mtv or something i listened to 2008 live in 2020 live what i found so very interesting
about the live videos is that she sets herself up for what she's about to do she gets very
firmly on her thighs she spreads her legs she plants her feet and she gets ready to anchor
her body as she goes up now anchoring i just want to say it's not like gripping it's actually
a balanced and coordinated muscular engagement of the body that allows the
spine to stay flexible through the back wall of the throat or she'll go no literally literally
that's not just theatrics there is a method of tapping the body to stimulate energy and then
the power stance the point is the body has to be really really primed to contain that
kind of energy and express it the energy on these dramatic high note key changes can seem
over the top but it's just part of a tradition of similar over-the-top drama lovers film composers
and romantic era composers a lot of them were fans of the next piece of the jargon puzzle the double
chromatic mediant modulation all right so when we say median that's just a very old-school way of
saying the third note of the major scale the key of g the mediant is b the chord built off of b
is a b minor chord and so when we modulate from g major to b minor that is a mediant modulation
if you change the quality of this chord and key to b major you'd have yourselves a chromatic
mediant modulation g major to b major you could also change the quality of the first key because
remember that nostalgic note e flat is coming from the key of g minor so when you have g minor
to be major that is a double chromatic mediant modulation but remember i made a big fuss of not
calling it b major i called it c flat major and in that case c flat major is n harmonic to b major so
when you go from the key of g minor to c flat major you have an n harmonic chromatic mediant
modulation mediant modulation chromatic mediant modulation double chromatic median modulation
and harmonic double chromatic medium to modulation jargon sure is fun all these kinds of modulations
are two distant keys on the circle of fifths there just aren't that many common tones shared
between them so the effect is dramatic this is probably why traditionally they have been used so
frequently in film and earlier romantic era music in fact in the music of sergey rahman enough in
his second piano concerto in the second movement we get a double chromatic mediant modulation it
starts in c minor and over the course of four bars modulates to the key of e major
i can't say if this was a conscious choice on the part of david foster to
use the same key change technique that rachmaninoff did but it does serve to
highlight the spirit of rachmaninoff in the arrangement of celine dions all by myself
so so far we have defined what the key change is but we haven't really gotten into the emotional
meat of the matter like why is this key change so affecting let's talk metaphor and meaning
yip herberg was the lyricist for somewhere over the rainbow the classic song about yearning for
something more in life harburg has this great quote on songwriting which i originally got from
my buddy ben levin who mentions it in a recent david bruce video music makes you feel feelings
lyrics make you think thoughts songs make you feel thoughts and that's what's going on today
baby songs make you feel thoughts wow i love this sentiment so much there's this empathy between
the narrator of the story and the audience it's a way of making an audience feel a thought in live
orchestrations of the song the band drops out entirely before the modulation it's just celine
singing there alone then a big drum fill happens and then everybody in the band and orchestra joins
in with the modulation in other words she's alone and then she's not that's like a pretty literal
example of storytelling using the orchestra in the band kind of as like a rumble pack there's more
sound hitting your body at that moment but it is a pretty effective way of telling a musical story
arrangement decisions and key changes can go a long way in how we feel the same lyric over
the course of a song scott handenburg writes about this in his article rock modulation and narrative
changes of key are influential in shaping our sonic experiences of these songs experiences that
in turn contribute to our understanding of their lyrical content musical features like modulation
can clarify an ambiguous lyric reinforce a song central theme or subvert a singer's message
the first several times that we hear the chorus lyric don't want to be by myself anymore
it's in the key of g and it comes across as kind of a resigned pleading however when we get to the
chorus before the modulation when the melody is altered to hit that high e flat the nostalgia note
the lyric comes across more as like the narrator is demanding to not be by herself anymore and as
we cross the threshold from g major to c flat major the e flat becomes a major third a point
of triumphant resolution and so we feel like the narrator will in fact not be by herself anymore
you get a sense of the strength of the narrator in this moment and i i literally mean the physical
strength of celine dion because it requires a lot of breath support and a lot of control to be able
to produce this e flat that transforms g major to c flat major in this way because music is acting
as a rumble pack here we're literally feeling it it's a way of turning the bodily sensation into
some kind of metaphorical meaning now there are other keys we could travel to in this moment of
great transformation like the key of a flat for example is a good resting point for that e flat
maybe or maybe the key of e flat for example that also might work
that one feels a bit too literal for my tastes and i i really think that c flat was the right
call and i think there's a good reason for that too one second this is one of my favorite books
harmonic experience by w.a matthew matthew is a composer who brought some of the ideas that he
learned as a student of north indian singing into the western harmonic practice and this book is uh
it's so awesome that john coltrane blurbs it like on the back matthew is consistently proving
himself to be one of the best in music theory like john coltrane this this book is awesome
one idea offered by the book is that notes have a reciprocal energy to them based on the harmonic
relationship back to a fundamental now if you need a primer on the harmonic series andrew huang's got
you covered but basically around every fundamental note there are other pitches which are vibrating
alongside it based upon mathematical multiples of that fundamental some of these extra pitches
include the perfect fifth and the major third now in the key of g uh we would call d the over tonal
fifth it's a perfect fifth up from g it is an overtone of g c on the other hand would be the
reciprocal fifth it is a perfect fifth down from g so if we were to sing the over tonal fifth d
note that i'm singing is a harmonic of the root g
however if we were to sing the reciprocal fifth the c
ma the root of the key the g is a harmonic of my own singing voice
my own singing voice is the fundamental frequency and then that root that home feeling that
everybody feels when they listen to the song is a harmonic of me like the physical energy and like
the responsibility of reciprocal intervals is just very different from overtone intervals if you're
trying to sing them in tune with the rest of the band if you take for example an overtoneal third b
in the key of g and compare it to a reciprocal third the nostalgia note e flat in the key of g
and kind of see what i mean you might be able to get a sense of where we're going with this
the idea here is that when celine dion is singing this high e flat this reciprocal third the rest
of the band in the key center is a harmonic of her singing voice and when the key changes
the polarity shifts and everything has to be recalibrated physically and how the waveforms
interact with one another so that she is now singing a harmonic to the rest of the band there's
a pretty profound energy shift here four against five becomes five against four we have crossed
the streams as it were see on the other side right matthew offers a map of emotional affects
that traces this emotional energy through the overtonal and reciprocal thirds and fifths pa the
overtonal fifth is sun energy ma the reciprocal fifth is moon energy ga the overtonal third is
compassion and komu da the reciprocal third is passion there is one combination of tones that
is almost bizarre in its affect the alternation between ga and the overtonal and reciprocal thirds
thirds have a drama in them a kind of grain or current almost as if you could detect the
five against four working itself out in the fluids and to membranes of the ear
when you flip that energy you are flipping your inner life you were talking about the high belted
note as being this pinnacle of expression which is why people belt if you're belting just to show off
i mean you'll get the applause because people don't know any better
but but if you want it to ring true like dion's there is a whole body involvement in it that comes
from knowing what that emotion feels like but then also having an instrument prepared to express it
so that the instrument doesn't express the actual angst you feel because then everything closes
um yeah yeah you uh what is it you express emotions you don't feel emotions that's a
that's a well you have to know how they feel but you can't feel them in that moment
on january 14 2016 celine dion's longtime husband and manager renee anjalil died of
throat cancer two days later on january 16 2016 her brother daniel dion also died of cancer
february 23rd was the first time that dion returned to performing at her las vegas residency
after these dual tragedies in her life she's saying all by myself a song whose structure is
specifically designed to feel the thought of not being alone imagine living this catharsis
night after night on that stage for years living the story of ritualistically calling
out to the heavens and demanding to not be alone anymore and through the sheer physical
power of your voice and the technique that you have developed on your instrument and a clever
key change or two the world around you acquiesces and bends to your will until one night it doesn't
now this is where the song changes key what we call a modulation part of the craft of
musicianship is mediating the immediate physical shock of moments of emotional
resonance which is very similar to what stage actors do you have to embody the emotion in
order to convey it authentically without letting it take over now unlike stage acting
music is largely a metaphorical language and as such it's a more direct line to experience
if you're telling a story through music it lets people feel the story immediately
provided that you share the same cultural and personal references as the storyteller
things like the nostalgia note the flat six nostalgia go a long way in helping us
feel the story of not wanting to be alone but there is even more that we can say about this from
the perspective of embodied cognition and singing technique that's another thing i found fascinating
about dion's live videos because i've seen my students do this i certainly did this when i
performed but as a classical musician so if you'd like to hear some more of the conversation that i
had with my mom on all of this you can watch the extended version of this video essay exclusively
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