page_title: Modulation (music)
section_title: Sequential modulation
hierarchical_section_title: Modulation (music) / Types / Sequential modulation
caption_attribution_description: English: Sequential modulation in Beethoven, Sonata Op. 53, movement I
context_page_description: In music, modulation is the change from one tonality to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest. Treatment of a chord as the tonic for less than a phrase is considered tonicization.
  Modulation is the essential part of the art. Without it there is little music, for a piece derives its true beauty not from the large number of fixed modes which it embraces but rather from the subtle fabric of its modulation.
  — Charles-Henri Blainville
context_section_description: "A passage in a given key ending in a cadence might be followed by the same passage transposed (up or down) to another key," this being known as sequential modulation. Although a sequence does not have to modulate, it is also possible to modulate by way of a sequence. A sequential modulation is also called rosalia. The sequential passage will begin in the home key, and may move either diatonically or chromatically. Harmonic function is generally disregarded in a sequence, or, at least, it is far less important than the sequential motion. For this reason, a sequence may end at a point that suggests a different tonality than the home key, and the composition may continue naturally in that key.
caption: Sequential modulation in Beethoven's Sonata Op. 53, movement I[18]About this soundPlay (help·info)
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