Jacob has mentioned the modulation from E to Bb (by a tritone) before on an Instagram livestream I think. The basic premise is that you raise the major tonic chord by a half step while lowering the bass by a half step, to get the V7 in third inversion of the key a tritone away. In the example here he went from E major to F/Eb, which lends itself really nicely to resolving to a Bb major chord in first inversion. He uses this technique again to get back to E from Bb, using a B7/A chord. It's an incredibly clever modulation technique that is so obvious yet doesn't have any harmonic backing in the language of music theory, it's a progression that is purely supported by solid voice leading.

I've been playing for maybe 30 years. Thanks to people like you Aimee, I've been able to grow musically the last 5 years like I've never imagined before. I've been derailed because of work and 3 children that call me away from my piano, but one thing that holds true is that a few musicians, like Jacob, Abe Laboriel and Aimee have this contagious way of inspiring me to come back to creating and never being comfortable with where I currently stand. You make me realize the possibilities are endless and the joy of sitting at my instrument is a gift from God I shouldn't take for granted.

you know its interesting how we use language like "what we expect to hear" when discussing these sorts of modulatory niceties etc but i actually think it is more the case that our way of thinking is persuasive to us after we do it. no listeners ears work this detailed in real time, but the fact that we come up with these sorts of things pleases us once it is done. lends weight to schoenbergs conception... great vid!

In a video the jacob collier is in the Berklee in a masterclass he teaches a way of modulating using tritone, I think that this modulation it´s the that jacob uses, and this F7 chord would be a chord with 6th augmented, and this tecnhnique reminds me chopin nocturne op 9 no 2 the full chord progression it´s Cm Dm/F F7 F7/C Bb B/A E/G# C7/G F7 Bb7 Eb

Collier's progression reminds me of Rachmaninov's sequence of chords leading up to the second movement of his Cm piano concerto #2, taking us from Cm to E major. Thanks for exploring Collier's intro!

4:20 Reminds me of Chopin's Ballade #3

Thank you Aimee for showing us this tutorial on this extract on Jacob Collier. I enjoyed watching your interview with Jacob a couple of years ago when you joined him after he had given one of his concerts. I remember how excited you were. Jacob Collier would have to be one of the most extraordinary and talented musicians in the world. I don’t think that there is a musical instrument in the world that he cannot play .

I like how by going to E again, he can subvert expectations twice. just when you think you've figured out the pattern, he throws you off by going to Db.

For some reason this piece reminded me of Erik Satie. I love the fact that he's not afraid to use the flat 7 on the bottom of an inversion, and makes it work!

Postcards…lovely. Such a talented fellah

As a amateur guitarist, I finding some inspiration in these ideas!

What a great way to start the morning, makes me glad I can read music.

E to Db is a chromatic mediant, one of the most common mods in all of music. 😉 Approaching it from the V of E is pretty cool. The opening ascending scale reminds me more of Foggy Day’s bridge

Classical and interesting tones Great stuff!.. Well done Aimee this was an instructive look into the mind of Jacob Collier, and how he hears music Thank you kind regards Worrell Robinson

He does something similarly cool on moon river. Right before the 3rd act as i recall

Kind of reminds me of the opening of the 4th mvt of Mahler's 9th symphony. You expect to land in E but you get Db instead.

Love add4 chords so much btw! The crunch of the major 3rd and the perfect 4th at the same time is so pretty. Its also a maj9 chord without the 3rd once inverted C E F G F A C E G Add2 chords are also super pretty and that's why I love minor 11 chords so much. Am11 is basically Cadd2/A and it has a similar concept to me. If you take the 5th out of an Aminor 11 you get: A C D G B Which is basically a G/C over the A,or you could also say its a Cmaj9(no 3rd) over A. When the 3rd is in the bass its even better 😍 for example LH: E RH: CDGB

Trying to teach yourself piano my way is one minute amazing to the next perplexing . I know what I want to do but don't let myself. Am I just lazy.. Its all about community , you guys make me love piano as its all about exploration of my inner self . Thank you for sharing

Great video really advance for my level however I always learn something from your videos Aimee, this one the Glissando would be Gold for me when I need to make a big move on the piano. 😊 really lovin that trick!

The ending of Un Sospiro by Liszt has some very interesting chord changes that reminded me of this technique. It does this... |Db Db/Cb| Bb Bb/Ab|G G/F|E E/D| And ends up at Db again. Each time that 7th in the bass lends itself well to modulating down a minor 3rd. Its a common classical concept I think

Wonderful lecture!

That E to F7/Eb to Bb/D is so cool - there's a 30 second clip of Jacob talking about that technique of modulating to the tritone

Another one for the books!😊

A musical idiom that I won't take credit for: if you keep 1 note common from the previous chord you can practically modulate anywhere 🤔🤔🤔

looks like a really beautiful inventive omnibus progression! the contrary outer voices moving by step give me that impression but the voicings are very lovely

Wow, great analysis!

He does have the octave in the D flat maj7 - you can see the hand-stretch in the video. I think your F7 at the end of the first line can be also read as a B7 flat5, which is where the tritone substitution comes in - but then he goes back on it, as you said. Played with it. Hoestly I think the modulation happened in the last two chords and there alone - that's where the big aural adjustment, the wrench, seems to take place to me. Everything before was just delightful footling.

Love this kind of video, I would love seeing more Jacob Collier breakdowns like this in the future. He did a performance of “You’ve Got a Friend” live in Atlanta, GA, which in my opinion has some great stuff. You should check it out if you haven’t. On KZfaq.

Jacob said in a podcast he figures out the song and the key when he is starting to play it

so on S one below: the evolution of the Aime NOlte Music has been magnificent. As far as I know she was the originator of the you tube music lesson thing. After her a lot of them slowly cropped up. And now maybe 10 to 15 years later; I see the reincarnated (or transformed) way hers are and.. its so good for; like I'm not really talented or able like her; so she opens up to see a universe of music I can't. But I can enjoy and appreciate this so much. Who else opens up Jacob Collier ? answer; no one; Aimee is still unique. (although I was skateboarding to college long before she was born; where; I hated it but they had little practice rooms where I transformed myself from mommy's lessons to ; you have to know the keys in triads to stepping stone into the world of; musiccalledjazz or Keith Jarret points out I think I heard this off a Nolte video; you can't in words explain music; I mean you can but it ain't. so; well you get the point; AImee opens this phenomena in a way that is smile emoji

Definitely an interesting modulation especially given how Jacob takes the most circuitous route possible (modulating up a tritone twice, back to his original key) to get there. I think you should be calling the destination C# rather than Db. It's not as far away as you think it is (E to C# is pretty natural) and makes it more easy to understand the B -> C# movement as a bVII -> I.

4:22 chopin ballade no.3

Wow!

Colier uses chords with no thirds boldly! This is quite engaging since it contrasts open, kinda empty in other contexts, harmony with the denser chromaticism, Tritones and extension that provide dissonance

I play porch guitar and didnt understand a word you said. 😊

Sometimes everything I play leads back to Db Major no matter what I do. Maybe he's channeling that, it's the best key. But also I don't see an F7 as being that far from E Major, it's just a tritone substitution for the B7 (or it's a Neapolitan chord in classical music theory). The main thing is the power of the wedge shape. If you try to analyze the harmony in Bach's various wedge shape fugues they don't have to make sense, the shape of the contrary voice leading is more powerful than any need for functional harmony.

Prob the G# on the voice, that helps to 'imagine' a perfect cadence to E, makes sense of that Db, as a Ab. (Sort of a modal interchange?)

Idk whats so unusual in these voicings or progression.. we have heard these tons of times by others.

I'm shocked the original audio posts here on YT weren't more popular right away. I'm not the world's biggest fan of his crooner vocal style (usually showing up when he begins a vocal line), but... I mean, come on! Despite the stoopidest lyrics ever, Going to Carolina was great! The source song almost doesn't matter... except when it does, like the Callum song. But for some of the others, who cares what the original song is... wow!

Isn't this quite common trick? Used a lot in classical too. I've heard Jacob talk about the diminished crossroads before and essentially it's this. Instead of moving from E to Eb diminished, he moves the f sharp down to an f to make the direction towards B flat even stronger. But it works even if u just keep it as Eb diminished. Nonetheless, the fact it is a common trick does not take away from Jacob's genius and ability to use it with complete fluency.

10:31 this progression John Williams uses as the Rebel Fanfare in StarWars. Check it out.

The up+down movement makes me think of Mozart's Lacrimosa, but a bit more adventurous harmonically. The "regal" cadence you latched onto made me think of Star Wars. And, I suppose by extension, Holst's Mercury.

"Nobody ever does it. Jacob did it" sounds like the title of a biography to me...

that Ema Dbma shift sounds a lot like Star Wars!

I think oasis did something similar to this btw. Hear me out lol. There's a song they have where it goes A > C# > F#m instead of A > C#m > F#m. The E major chord is in the key of A of course so it made me think of that too I think they're more closely related than people think

Sounds like the opening of Chopin's A flat Ballade.

He got there one step at a time! Ba dum tss!

At first I viewed the transition as E E# A# B# A# B ... then ending on C#. Then it looks like getting more sharp rather than more flat. Of course it wouldn't be written that way, but another way to think about it.

Such intelligent woman. It boggles my mind: could I ever get so lucky. I hope so

I thought that second chord was Bmaj7 - like that movement when the bass walks down chromatically from the root...

Db is the relative minor of E isn't it? You could think of it as a I to VI instead of vi. So yeah they are kind of related as they share a common tone like said in the video.

"Nobody ever does it. Jacob did it." Enough said

jacob and charlie puth talked about that concept (YT clip) that B7 and F7,D7and Ab7 are the same so you lead to either Emaj, Bbmaj or Dbmaj and Gmaj. this is what he is doing here. i'm thinking of like A in C or Eb instantly when improvising in C, BUT i'm a million years away from jacobs lightning speed and VOICELEADING

I thought the first time I heard the beginning, it was just a simple B contrary motion scale, with notes that had already been played, played again, almost like a mathematical series like the Fibonacci...ie

That C5 feels like an F9

Wow that e maj to db chord is really astoundingly pretty. 😅I’m ok with not being in his brain 24/7 tho. Lol

E to Db (10:31) sounds like Proud Mary to me.

4:23 Reminds me of this part of Rhapsody In Blue: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r9R1gtJjndLXkpc.html

The first few chords sounded a lot like My One and Only Love to me.

there is a video on youtube where Jacob Collier explains the tritone modulation that he does here twice, from E-Bb and Bb back to E. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rpild9xo1czGaKs.html

Sounds like a minor chord and not major. Why not f minor?

Isn't that just a regular ol modulation to the relative (enharmonic) minor?

E to F7 is just a tritone sub? Nothing mysterious there.

Opening of a Chopin Ballade: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eNGAf6egv77QeIU.html

i consider Jacob our modern Mozart!

Do "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" and "Dancing On The Ceiling" both start with the same six scale degrees?

I'm immediately reminded of There Will Never Be Another You, and especially Art Tatum's repeating figure on his rendition. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ra6kp8VqltzJiKs.html

For many chord positions there are 2 or 3 possible chord interpretations. He seems to use many inversions. Many notes keep ringing on transitions, creating a terrible mess in the background . His voice leading tries to make it more or less acceptable to us. That is not sufficient. Not only my ears tell this, but also my virtual assistant Transcribe! Conclusion: very obscure and ambiguous, many possible interpretations. Honestly, I'm not impressed at all. This ain't the "harmony" that appeals to me.

An Al Gore Rhythm Comment.

Any relation to Nick Nolte, probably not?!

Aimee is a dish.