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B Flat Note: Changing Keys In a Song
It’s that B♭ note that sends a signal to your listener’s brain that something has changed, that you're changing keys in the song. The B♭ note is not a note in the C major scale. It’s a foreign, chromatic note. This heightens musical interest.
By introducing that B♭, you have signalled that the tonal centre has shifted.
- The notes E and F have become the new scale degrees 7 and 1 (8).
- The notes G, A, and B♭ have become the new scale degrees 2, 3, and 4.
- That means you have changed keys, from the key of C major to the key of F major.
Look it up. Table 24 above. Try it out to get the drift of it.
The thing is, you have control over these musical variables. If you want to, you can pick a couple of keys, decide you’re going to write a tune that modulates from one key to the other and back again, then write a tune and a set of chord changes that does exactly that. If you know what you’re doing, the tune is likely to be a lot more musically interesting than it would have been had you stayed in one key throughout.