The most elegant key change in all of pop music

JGeropoulas

The Living Force
I know very little about music composition, or the science behind it, other than it's fundamentally based on mathematical relationships of sound frequencies, chords of which each evoke specific emotions. In contrast to me, the guy in this video is quite educated in music, and provides this meta-view of music: "Music makes us feel emotions, lyrics make us think thoughts and songs make us feel thoughts." This reminds me of near-death accounts in which people describe hearing colors and seeing music--a seeming expansion of consciousness or merging of sensory processing. It's as if music can be serve as a bridge into higher realms, perhaps the basis of the common belief that music is a universal language (as is its cousin, mathematics).

Anyway, with those thoughts as a backdrop, I was intrigued to hear this guy's technical explanation of what's going on with Celine Dion's rendition of the ballad, "All By Myself", in which she performs a very difficult "modal mixture, common tone, eharmonic, double chromatic, mediant modulation," better known as a key change from G major to Cb major.

 
Anyway, with those thoughts as a backdrop, I was intrigued to hear this guy's technical explanation of what's going on with Celine Dion's rendition of the ballad, "All By Myself", in which she performs a very difficult "modal mixture, common tone, eharmonic, double chromatic, mediant modulation," better known as a key change from G major to Cb major.
Just came across this post… the key change is best described as a common tone modulation up a major third. This type of root movement can be found all over the Romantic period and onward. It can also be found as part of a chord progression, one famous example being the theme to the original Star Trek television show. Without seeing the score, I suspect the key change is to B as opposed to Cb. The pitch B is the third degree of the Gmajor scale and closely related to G as the V7/vi (five seven of six) i.e. B7 to Eminor, the latter being the sixth degree of Gmajor, I.e. it’s relative minor.
 
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