Chromatic Mediants and Application with "False Colors"

"False Colors" is a song that I wrote and recorded last year as I was trying to explore some different harmonic relationships. I used something in this song called a Chromatic Mediant. A Chromatic Mediant is a modulation (key change) that happens when you move to a chord that is a 3rd away, either up or down. For example in the key of C Major the diatonic 3rd up is an Eminor but if you were to go to an Emajor instead this would be a Chromatic Mediant. These modulations are used to great length in a lot of music especially modern film and game music because of there very expressive sound.

Here is a list of all the Chromatic Mediants for C major:

Em (diatonic mediant) going a 3rd up from C
-E
-Eb
-Ebm
Am (diatonic sub-mediant) going a 3rd down C
-A
-Ab
-Abm

In my song "False Colors" I use 2 different Chromatic Mediants. The first is in measure 10 an E going to a G#, in the key of E the 3rd should be a G#m, but switching it out for the major instead gives it a rising feeling. The second example is in measure 13 where I have a Bb going to Dbm.

These little modulations are a ton of fun to play with, so experiment and see what you come up with. If you would like to listen to more of my music you can do so on Spotify, Bandcamp or my Website .