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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Listening Service

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Music: Classical

An odyssey through the musical universe, presented by Tom Service

Rethink music with The Listening Service. Tom Service presents a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works

The Listening Service: Truck Driver Modulation

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24/06/2018

Truck Driver Modulation

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Truck Driver Modulation

Tom Service on the art of the sudden key change - and our love-hate relationship with it.

Tom Service on the art of the sudden key change - whether it's Bruckner, Bon Jovi, Mahler or Michael Jackson. Today we ramp up the emotional impact with a blatant change of key.

Today on The Listening Service Tom gets into gear for the truck driver modulation - crunching from one key to another, and not worrying overly about the musical synchromesh. 

There's not too much attention paid to the proper rules of harmony in today's programme, which celebrates the emotional and dramatic impact of the well-placed sudden key change. From Bruckner to Bon Jovi, Mahler to Michael Jackson, and less alliteratively, from Schubert to Bill Withers via Barry Manilow, we may love to hate this technique, but join Tom as he stands up for the key change (like Westlife).

With Dr. Dai Griffiths, Senior Lecturer in Music at Oxford Brookes University, and novelist Elizabeth Day.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Truck Driver Modulation

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