page_title: Modulation (music)
section_title: Chromatic modulation
hierarchical_section_title: Modulation (music) / Types / Chromatic modulation
caption_attribution_description: English: Chromatic modulation in Bach's Du grosser Schmerzensmann, BWV 300, m. 5-6 transitions from FM to dm through the inflection of C to C between the second and third chords. Note that there is no common chord.
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 chromatic modulation is so named because it occurs at the point of a chromatic progression, one which involves the chromatic inflection of one or more notes whose letter name, thus, remains the same though altered through an accidental. Chromatic modulations are often between keys which are not closely related. A secondary dominant or other chromatically altered chord may be used to lead one voice chromatically up or down on the way to the new key. (In standard four-part chorale-style writing, this chromatic line will most often be in one voice.) For example, a chromatic modulation from C major to D minor:
  In this case, the IV chord in C major (F major) would be spelled F–A–C, the V/ii chord in C major (A major) spelled A–C♯–E, and the ii chord in C major (D minor), D–F–A. Thus the chromaticism, C–C♯–D, along the three chords; this could easily be part-written so those notes all occurred in one voice. Despite the common chord (ii in C major or i in D minor), this modulation is chromatic due to this inflection.
  The consonant triads for chromatic modulation are ♭III, ♭VI, ♭II, ♯iv, vii, and ♭VII in major, and ♮iii, ♮vi, ♭II, ♯iv, ii, and ♮vii in minor.
  In the example pictured, a chromatic modulation from F major to D minor:
  In this case, the V chord in F major (C major) would be spelled C–E–G, the V in D minor (A major) would be spelled A–C♯–E. Thus the chromaticism, C–C♯–D, which is here split between voices but may often easily be part-written so that all three notes occur in one voice.
  The combination of chromatic modulation with enharmonic modulation in late Romantic music led to extremely complex progressions in the music of such composers as César Franck, in which two or three key shifts may occur in the space of a single bar, each phrase ends in a key harmonically remote from its beginning, and great dramatic tension is built while all sense of underlying tonality is temporarily in abeyance. Good examples are to be found in the opening of his Symphony in D minor, of which he himself said (see Wikiquote) "I dared much, but the next time, you will see, I will dare even more..."; and his Trois Chorals for organ, especially the first and third of these, indeed fulfill that promise.
caption: Chromatic modulation in Bach's Du grosser Schmerzensmann, BWV 300, mm. 5–6[15] (About this soundPlay (help·info) with half cadence, About this soundPlay (help·info) with PAC) transitions from F major to D minor through the inflection of C♮ to C♯ between the second and third chords. Note that there is no common chord.
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