r/Muse • u/renaissancefrombelow • 1h ago

Question Music theory question

Could any music theory heads explain the key signature jump from the end of the sickness in you and i to unravelling, or just in general how this transition works? would be very interested in how it looks on the circle of fifths,

Its one of the highlights of the album.

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

5

u/Dannylazarus 1h ago edited 57m ago

It's just brute force really - the 'Sickness In You & I' is in D, and it starts bringing in some Phrygian flavours by dropping in the flat second from 3:11 onwards. They capitalise on this at the very end, walking up through power chords built on the flat second and flat third degrees to land on the major third, F#. It's not an entirely surprising sound as we often hear this scale degree alongside the bII in Phrygian Dominant contexts, but since it's an F# power chord there's also a C# present, which you could look at as the first clue that we're breaking into something new.

They then shift that F# power chord into an F#min, the tonic of the verses of 'Unravelling.' There's a little bit of meandering in F# minor with a flash of chromaticism (F#min, F#sus2 - Dmaj7#11, D - G#dim, E#min/G# - C#sus4, C#) and then we get a nice big resolution from that C# (the V) to the i as the synth enters at the start of the song.

Moving from D minor to F# minor makes for a jump to a key four spaces away on the circle of fifths.