How to Use "Harmonic Foreshadowing" to Craft Surprising Key Changes

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]listening from the second line.

[00:00:01]>> [music] [music] >> Right, when we arrive, it feels inevitable. It doesn't feel out of place at all. Instead of feeling like a surprise, it feels like a revelation.

[00:00:24]Right? How does a composer do this? How do they make something feel inevitable?

[00:00:30]Well, in storytelling, we use something called foreshadowing, which hints at something that's going to happen later in the story. We can do this in music, too. We usually call it preparation. So, how does Chris Bowers, the composer, prepare this key change? Well, one of the ways he does it is fairly straightforward, but the second way he does it absolutely blew my mind when I realized it. So, first, when we get to the final D major, we realize that we've heard it before. [music] Right? Right before the G minor, we had a D major, only that D major had a seventh.

[00:01:11]Right? We arrive [music] at the G minor, and then it goes back to the D major.

[00:01:17]Because it doesn't have that seventh, it feels more stable, like home.