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Do you ever wonder what happens to food after you eat it? Why that gurgling sound is coming from your stomach? What is the meaning of the french sounding "legume" word you keep hearing? Or if there is really that much difference between white bread and wheat?
Let's start to answer these questions and more by taking a tour of your insides!
Digestion is "the process in the alimentary canal by which food is broken up". Digestion happens physically by chewing, and chemically by the action of "enzymes".1 Enzymes are proteins that your body makes to support the many chemical reactions that happen in your body. The enzymes that we make for digestion are called "digestive enzymes" (go figure). They break up the food we eat into little baby pieces so that we can absorb them.
All foods are made up of macromolecules. The three macromolecules are carbohydrates, fat, and protein. These 3 macromolecules are digested differently, by different enzymes, in different parts of the digestive tract. See chart below.
At this point you should be feeling pretty proud of yourself because you have been a master of digesting and absorbing food your entire life. Congratulations!
Let's re-center our focus on grains and beans, the digestion and absorption of grains and beans, and how these foods affect your digestive system.
Most of us have heard of beans. Some of us have heard of legumes. Some of us still don't understand what a legume is.
Legumes include all forms of beans and peas from the Fabaceae family. There are thousands of different species of legumes. This family includes "pulses" which are the dried seeds of legumes. Well known legumes are chickpeas, beans (navy, cannellini, kidney, black-eyed peas), peas lentils, lupins. Legumes can be consumed in many forms such as split, ground (flours), dried, canned, cooked, or frozen.
So yes, beans are legumes.
Despite all of these amazing properties, only ~8% of U.S. adults report eating legumes on any given day.
Grains are the edible seeds of specific grasses belonging to the "Poaceae" family. Examples of grains are wheat, oats, rice, barley, rye, corn, triticale, millet, sorghum, spelt, freekeh, farro, kamut, and eikorn.6 I challenge you to reread that sentence out loud. Preferably in public.
These days, grains are divided into two subgroups: whole grains and refined grains. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel, which includes the bran, germ, and endosperm. Refined grains were once whole grains before they were milled. Milling is a process that removes the bran and germ from the whole grain. While milling grains gives them a finer texture and improves their shelf-life, it reduces their nutrient content significantly. Milling reduces the dietary fiber, iron, and B vitamins naturally found in whole grains.
Most refined grains are "enriched". This means that B vitamins and iron are added back to the refined grains after the milling process. Fiber, however, is not added back to enriched grains.
Make it GRAIN more BEANS!
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Eleanor Baker is going to squish myths about grains, discuss the way your body digests beans, and how to properly incorporate these things into your everyday life by maximizing essential nutrients and vitamins.
Of course there will be food too. Plantology will have a build your own grain and bean bar, along with a cooking demo on a fast, simple, but delicious bean dip you can take to all your holiday parties! This won't be your everyday workshop, but rather a fun experience of introducing you to new foods and ways to improve digestibility and all around gut health.
Digestion. Dictionary.com website. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/digestion. Accessed October 2018.
Macronutrient Digestion. University of Florida Distance Learning. https://files.distance.ufl.edu/FoHN/documents/textbook/week5_annotated_reading.pdf. Accessed October 2018.
Dimer J. In What Digestive Organ Are Nutrients Absorbed. Livestrong website. https://www.livestrong.com/article/436603-in-which-digestive-organ-are-nutrients-absorbed/. Published August 2017. Accessed October 2018.
Types of Legumes. Grains & Legumes Nutrition Council website. https://www.glnc.org.au/legumes/types-of-legumes. Published 2018. Accessed October 2018.
Polak R, Philips EM, Campbell A. Legumes: Health Benefits and Culinary Approaches to Increase Intake. Clin Diabetes. 2015 Oct; 33(4): 198-205.
Types of Grains. Grains and Legumes Nutrition Council. https://www.glnc.org.au/grains-2/types-of-grains/. Accessed October 2018.


Because patents protect physical or electronic components from copyists, patents provide the strongest IP protection for the "guts" of a toy. Patents allow the patent holder to exclude all others from making, using or selling a product in the U.S. without the holder's consent. Because of this intrinsic value, patents also serve useful business and strategic functions.
Without patents, companies become vulnerable in the marketplace on multiple fronts. With patents, a company can effectively set a platform for future development and growth.
In the 1980s, the Ideal Toy Company licensed rights to a rotating cubelet puzzle and trademarked the name Rubik's Cube.
The trademark was valuable, but it was insufficient to block the sale of inexpensive copycat puzzles that flooded the U.S. during the height of the Rubik's Cube's popularity. While the imitations could not be sold as Rubik's Cube, they could be put on store shelves to compete with the branded puzzle at a lower cost.
This is because the inventor of the cube, Hungarian sculptor Erno Rubik, failed to file a U.S. patent for the mechanical components of his invention. Though Rubik did quite well by licensing his toy to Ideal, and Ideal holds the distinction of selling the most popular puzzle worldwide, both parties would have fared far better if they were able to stop the import of cheaper imitations via a U.S. patent.
A properly crafted patent would have forced imitators to cease selling puzzles having a similar cubelet structure, or to pay a royalty to use the patent.
In fact, rather than being able to exclude others from making and selling such puzzles, Ideal's successor (CBS) actually found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit on a patent for a cube puzzle held by yet another company. With no patent rights of its own to use as a bargaining chip, CBS had no choice but to fight an expensive and prolonged legal battle that went back and forth between the lower court and appeals court for the better part of a decade.
Eventually, CBS was absolved of patent wrongdoing for its ubiquitous 3 x 3 x 3 puzzle. Nevertheless, both the inventor (Rubik) and the licensee (Ideal/CBS) would have benefited from patent protection for the cube at the outset.
In contrast, the humble and iconic LEGO building block had been patented for decades. While the basic patent on the interlocking blocks has long expired, the LEGO companies had the foresight to protect improvements on the toy as LEGO products evolved over the past 50 years.
These include patents on the modular heads of LEGO people, the swivel and joint assemblies, joining rods, and electronic virtual models of the physical pieces. LEGO continues to maintain a comprehensive set of utility and design patents. The technology for producing LEGO blocks is not complicated, but imitators historically were kept at bay from selling low-cost, competing products by a set of patents that guarded the toy line.
LEGO is now involved in diverse areas, including amusement parks and video gaming, each having roots in the simple plastic building module. Had LEGO been forced to fend off early imitators, it is questionable whether the company would have the same hold in the several markets it enjoys today.
As toys include more electronic and technical components, patents are bound to become more instrumental in the toy industry.
One school of thought says that toy trends fade quickly, and that the pace of the toy industry would make a patented technology obsolete well before a patent is even examined. However, the methodical and consistent building of a patent portfolio, such as that surrounding LEGO, demonstrates how patents can play an important role in a toy maker's growth.
This stands in contrast to the economic and legal tribulations of the Rubik's Cube. Finally, as the LEGO example illustrates, patents can confer exclusive rights to a product in its entirety or to a component of the whole. As a result of these exclusive provisions, patents can be used as leverage to structure a partnering arrangement or to obtain funding. Both of these secondary uses can prove very helpful in tough economic times, which will be addressed next in this series.
1. Consider whether any operational aspects of the toy (mechanical or electronic components) could potentially be protected by a utility patent. Or, if the toy is an improvement of an older product, could an aspect of the improved product be protected by a utility patent? Keep in mind that a patentable feature need not be the entire product but can be a component of the whole.
2. If there is such an operational feature in Step 1, do a cursory patentability search to determine whether that feature has already been invented. A good place to start this search is the USPTO's website. Go to http://patft.uspto.gov/ and search both the database of issued patents and published patent applications using the website's search tools.
3. Regardless of whether the new product or improvement includes operational features that can be protected by a utility patent, also consider the possibility of a design patent or a trademark to provide some intellectual property protection for the appearance or branding of the toy.


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Pace Launches Internal Investigation Following Workplace Abuse Allegations
Just days after Pace Gallery on Friday announced that it had begun a legal investigation of Douglas Baxter and Susan Dunne, two of its top dealers, according to Artnet News, Baxter, a president of the company, announced that he is taking a leave of absence from the company, citing unaddressed "anger management issues." The news comes on the heels of an article published last Thursday on the same platform, limning allegations by current and former Pace employees that the pair had fostered a "toxic" workplace environment that had gone unaddressed for two decades, despite numerous complaints."I want everyone to rest assured that we take these allegations seriously and that we are acting to protect our employees and the culture of our gallery," CEO Marc Glimcher wrote to employees on Friday in an email. "Since these accusations came to light, Arne [Glimcher, the gallery's founder and Marc's father] and I have talked to and met with a number of advisors and we launched an independent legal investigation into these allegations, which is being conducted by outside counsel."No further details are yet available regarding the length and scope of the investigation; Glimcher noted that Baxter and Dunne were cooperating with the investigation, and each would work from home during its course. In announcing his step away from the gallery, Baxter wrote in a letter to Pace staffers: "I am aware that I have behaved in ways that created distress and hurt people around me." Regarding his anger management issues, he noted, "I've made attempts to address them in the past, the time has come for me to really deal with it."In closing Friday's email to employees, Glimcher was unequivocal about Pace's stance on workplace abuse. "We are facing our past mistakes, our contradictions and our shortcomings with a true desire to be the best community and business that we can be. Pace Gallery stands firmly against verbal and physical abuse. We will not tolerate a toxic work environment."
China issues new rules to review foreign investment on national security grounds By Reuters
Britain digs heels in as deadline looms on post-Brexit trade talks By Reuters

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


At DMI our team of professionals Staff and technologists along with our state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment provides our providers with clinical expertise. The result is the highest quality images, which allow our skilled team of radiologists to make accurate diagnosis so that you receive the most effective treatment.
DMI strives to provide our patients, our physicians and our community the highest quality imaging available.
Diagnostic Medical Imaging, LLC is committed to comprehend and enhance the quality of life for each patient by providing advanced medical technologies and individualized, professional healthcare from a caring, and specialized staff.
Diagnostic Medical Imaging was founded in 2007 with our first center in Hialeah, Florida. After our first endeavor was successful, expanding came naturally. We followed suit by opening our first Broward location in Hollywood, Florida in 2013. Soon after that, another location was opened in Pembroke Pines at the start of 2015. We hope to continue expanding so that we can spread our mission of quality services and satisfaction to as many people as possible. We will continue this strive for greatness by looking into alternative forms of care, such as new modalities and new technologies to better serve you.
We at Diagnostic Medical Imaging, LLC (DMI) are proud of our service. We constantly strive to beat your expectations. If you have a question or a concern, or we did not quite meet your expectations. Please let us know about your experience at our facilities. We want to hear from you. Feel free to contact us, any time. Our state of the art voice mail system allows you to reach us 24 hours a day.


Play Smashy City online for free! Crush buildings, cars, helicopters in town! your mission is to demolish everything. You can do everything in the city.the more points you will earn to unlock bigger monsters. Have fun! Play Free Online Version in your browser.


Yunus Aksoy believes in getting a head start on things. Case in point: He began blanketing Irvine with campaign signs for a City Council seat he is vying for in the spring…for an election that doesn't happen until November.
Aksoy claims he needed the early exposure, and is unapologetic: "I reached my goal — I put my name out there," he said.
And it seems to have at least something to do with a new policy that the City Council passed this week that calls for candidates to be asked to sign a pledge not to place campaign signs in public rights of way until 60 days before the election.
The pledge request, initiated by Councilman Larry Agran and approved by the council Tuesday night, comes in the form of a written statement candidates receive once they've pulled their nomination papers. Candidates, if they choose to do so, can sign the statement and file it with the city clerk.
Agran said Aksoy's signs did not inspire the idea for the pledge, but that they did provide impetus in at least one sense.
"It underscored the reality of the state of the law now that would actually subject the city to having signs all the time," Agran said.
Agran also said there is a cost involved in monitoring the signs and reaching out to landscape contractors who have to work around the signs. Tens of thousands of dollars alone have probably been spent on educating the landscapers, Agran said.
City officials say the pledge can be withdrawn at any time the candidate chooses. There are no enforcement mechanisms if candidates ignore their promise, so the pledge essentially relies on the honor system.
"We are appealing to their good sense of judgment," said City Manager Sean Joyce.
Councilwoman Beth Krom expressed some concern about accountability for candidates who don't pledge, or who pledge and then go back on their word.
Joyce said while the city is prohibited from punishing candidates for putting up the signs, he suggested accountability would come on Election Day.
Then again, signs do make a difference. Voice of OC published a story in May https://voiceofoc.org/countywide/county_government/article_1fa9e1c0-66e3-11df-a0e6-001cc4c03286.html on campaign signs and showed that while they might not always get the whole message across, they're vital to a candidate's name recognition.
And for candidates with less money, the signs might be all the candidates have to run with.
We'll let you know who signs the pledge and who doesn't. We'll also tell you who doesn't keep their promise.


Every time that someone's on a spacecraft, I was into First Man. It might genuinely be the first time I didn't hate scenes shot with continual use of shaky cam, which is noteworthy. But by and large First Man was not for me, biopics often aren't, and First Man is absolutely a biopic. It's not about NASA, or the Space Race, or landing on the moon, on astronauts, those things are present, but it's about Armstrong. I know that, because he is the only person, place or thing we get any real insight into. Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn't quite work as a whole.


James Ahmadu, Director of Relief and Rehabilitation of the Kogi State Emergency Management Agency, made the disclosure on Thursday at Edeha community in Kotonkarfe.
He spoke to newsmen after visiting one of the IDPs' Camps in Edeha community, saying that more than 150 households had been trapped by flooding in the past three days.
He said: "We are here for on-the-spot assessment of the flooding situation in Kotonkarfe. As you can see everywhere is flooded. Over 64 communities were submerged.
"Five temporary camps have been set up for the victims by the state in collaboration with the local government that is why NEMA is here for assessment of the situation.
Bitrus Samuel, Head of Operations at NEMA Headquarters, represented by Reubean Babatunde of the Abuja Operations Office of NEMA said that NEMA was in Kogi to assess the extent of damage caused by the flooding.
Samuel said: "We were told there are five different IDPs Camps in Kotokarfe. We are in the first camp in Edeha community to see the displaced persons and get their data, take it back to Abuja, to see what NEMA can do to assist them.
"The local government official said that about 30 of the communities were submerged on September 3 and another 34 on September 4, making 64 villages submerged as at now.
"This is a natural disaster but NEMA would do its best to respond as fast as we can to ensure that those people that are trapped are rescued.
Yakubu Mohammed, the PRO/Desk Officer on Ecology of the Kotonkarfe Local Government Council, told reporters that residents started experiencing flooding a few days ago.
Mohammed said: "We want NEMA to come to our aid. Many of our people are finding it difficult to move out of their communities because some are still trapped there.


"Slyme" is a Street Dreams by Ross™ paint work.
This is a 1932 Series 900 Packard fully redone and made into a street rod by Street Dreams by Ross™. These images were taken at the Grand Rapids, Michigan AutoRama.
Packard images are courtesy of Arnie Hooton of Michigan.


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Arrow LeftBlack arrow pointing left259 / 470Arrow RightBlack arrow pointing rightBackArrow LeftBlack arrow pointing left
far cry 6store
Far Cry 6 Announces Free Weekend, Stranger Things Crossover
Far Cry 6 is hosting a free weekend, running March 24-27, on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC through the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store. This game and its DLCs are also included in a Ubisoft+ subscription on PC, Stadia, and Amazon Luna.
New players can pre-load Far Cry 6 on March 22 at 12 PM PT on PC and PlayStation platforms, and will have access to the full game when the free weekend begins, including the upcoming Stranger Things crossover mission inspired by the Netflix series, and all free downloadable content published to date – all playable in co-op. Those who want to continue exploring the island of Yara in Far Cry 6 after the free weekend can keep their progress and purchase the game and its Season Pass at big discounts:
Ubisoft Store: From now until the end of March, get up to 50% off as part of the Spring Sale.
Xbox: As part of Xbox's Deal of the Week, from March 24-28 players can get 50% off all editions of the game, as well as 35% off the Season Pass.
PlayStation: From March 23-30, players can get 50% off the Standard and Gold editions of Far Cry 6, and 35% off the Season Pass, as part of PlayStation Store's Deal of the Week.
Epic Games Store: As part of the Epic Spring Sale, players can get 50% off the Standard, Gold, Deluxe, and Ultimate editions of the game, and 35% off the Season Pass. The Epic Games Store is also offering 35% off the Vaas: Insanity DLC, and 25% off the Pagan: Control DLC.
Stadia: From March 24-31: 50 percent off the Standard, Gold and Ultimate Editions of the game, and 35 percent off of the Season Pass. From now until March 31: 40 percent off of the Deluxe Edition.
To coincide with the free weekend, Ubisoft announced The Vanishing, a new free Stranger Things crossover mission, available March 24 for all Far Cry 6 players. The Vanishing will bring a stealth-horror-survival gameplay experience to Far Cry players for the first time with mysterious characters and new lore. In The Vanishing, players will enter a twisted version of Yara inspired by the Upside-Down, where Dani discovers that Yarans are disappearing and no one is safe – not even Chorizo. Players will be able to explore Stranger Things-inspired locations, such as a hidden bunker and an abandoned laboratory. Dani's mission – with new skins for a flamethrower and shotgun – is to search for Chorizo and find out what happened to the abducted Yarans.
For more on Far Cry 6, read about its recent Rambo crossover mission, or check out this developer interview about the Far Cry villain DLCs: Vaas: Insanity, Pagan: Control, and Joseph: Collapse.


text:
package org.apache.pulsar.functions.worker;

import static org.apache.pulsar.common.util.Runnables.catchingAndLoggingThrowables;
import com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import java.util.function.Supplier;
import lombok.Getter;
import lombok.Setter;
import lombok.extern.slf4j.Slf4j;
import org.apache.pulsar.client.util.ExecutorProvider;

@Slf4j
public class ClusterServiceCoordinator implements AutoCloseable {

    @Getter
    @Setter
    private static class TimerTaskInfo {
        private long interval;
        private Runnable task;

        public TimerTaskInfo(long interval, Runnable task) {
            this.interval = interval;
            this.task = task;
        }
    }

    private final String workerId;
    private final Map<String, TimerTaskInfo> tasks = new HashMap<>();
    private final ScheduledExecutorService executor;
    private final LeaderService leaderService;
    private final Supplier<Boolean> isLeader;

    public ClusterServiceCoordinator(String workerId, LeaderService leaderService, Supplier<Boolean> isLeader) {
        this(workerId, leaderService, isLeader, Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor(
                new ExecutorProvider.ExtendedThreadFactory("cluster-service-coordinator-timer")));
    }

    @VisibleForTesting
    ClusterServiceCoordinator(
            String workerId,
            LeaderService leaderService,
            Supplier<Boolean> isLeader,
            ScheduledExecutorService executor
    ) {
        this.workerId = workerId;
        this.leaderService = leaderService;
        this.isLeader = isLeader;
        this.executor = executor;
    }

    public void addTask(String taskName, long interval, Runnable task) {
        tasks.put(taskName, new TimerTaskInfo(interval, task));
    }

    public void start() {
        log.info("/** Starting cluster service coordinator **/");
        for (Map.Entry<String, TimerTaskInfo> entry : this.tasks.entrySet()) {
            TimerTaskInfo timerTaskInfo = entry.getValue();
            String taskName = entry.getKey();
            this.executor.scheduleAtFixedRate(catchingAndLoggingThrowables(() -> {
                if (isLeader.get()) {
                    try {
                        timerTaskInfo.getTask().run();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                        log.error("Cluster timer task {} failed with exception.", taskName, e);
                    }
                }
            }), timerTaskInfo.getInterval(), timerTaskInfo.getInterval(), TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void close() {
        log.info("Stopping Cluster Service Coordinator for worker {}", this.workerId);
        this.executor.shutdown();
        log.info("Stopped Cluster Service Coordinator for worker {}", this.workerId);
    }
}


text:
Galaxy Note and S Pen: Can a tweener smartphone-tablet succeed?
Samsung's Galaxy Note: A stylus by any other name
Michael Gartenberg: Samsung rethinks the pen
Cool stuff: Your 2011 holiday tech gift guide
Hands on: Samsung's Galaxy Note engages, perplexes
With its S Pen stylus and large screen, the Galaxy Note could be a doodler's dream machine. But is it right for you?
Senior Editor, Computerworld |
Samsung's Galaxy Note is a fascinating, if perplexing, tweener device. It pulls together a full-featured smartphone with a 5.3-in screen that doubles as a tablet, responding to finger touches as well as input from a stylus-like S Pen. Whether this works for you depends very much on your particular needs.
The Galaxy Note smartphone and S Pen stylus
By the numbers, Galaxy Note is 5.78 x 3.27 x 0.38 in. and weighs in at 6.28 oz. This is noticeably bigger than the Galaxy Nexus (5.33 x 2.67 x 0.37 in., 5.1 oz.) and the iPhone 4S (4.50 x 2.31 x 0.37 in., 4.9 oz.). It fits inside my suit coat inner pocket, but not that easily into my shirt pocket, where I usually carry my smartphone.
At least Samsung was able to keep the Note thin and attractive, with a full Gorilla glass screen surrounded by a rounded polished metal frame. For its size, it doesn't appear bulky.
And it is truly wondrous to have that 5.3-in. big-screen real estate for watching videos in high definition and playing games such as Words with Friends, a fun game that is hard on the eyes when played for long on a typical smartphone screen. The 1280 x 800 HD Super AMOLED display rivals any tablet or smartphone screen I've seen for clarity. Samsung also makes Super AMOLED Plus screens (like the one on the company's Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet), but I can't tell the difference.
A bonus feature: The Galaxy Note allows a user to adjust the screen brightness from the home screen by swiping a finger left or right on the notifications bar at the top. It works only if you turn automatic screen adjustment off, but having the manual capability seems valuable, as I've noticed how slowly automatic screen adjustment functions work when I walk from a bright room into a dark one.
With an 8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, HD video recording and playback, and 4x digital zoom, you can take amazing photos. There is also a 2-megapixel front camera for video calls.
The multimedia functions in the Galaxy Note are augmented by a Snapdragon 1.5GHz dual core processor and a huge 2,500 mAh battery -- 700 mAhs more capacity than most smartphone batteries on the market today. I was able to stream Pandora music non-stop for three hours (with other functions on the Note turned off), decreasing the battery from 100% to just 73%. Samsung pegs the battery's talk time at 10 hours.
[ Read the Free course: Managing PCs and Devices with Microsoft Intune special report ]
The Galaxy Note launches with Android 2.3.6 (along with Samsung's TouchWiz interface). Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, will come to the Galaxy Note, Samsung said, but (as usual) no date has been announced.
Using the S Pen
One of the ways that the Galaxy Note distinguishes itself from the competition, besides its size, is the presence of the S Pen digital pen/stylus. This is where the Note could truly delight some users -- artists especially. For me, however, the tablet experience and S Pen proved frustrating.
According to Samsung, the S Pen has the precision of a stylus, with the added features of built-in Wacom technology that includes 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. The S Pen causes capacitive (electrical) responses on the touchscreen, with more variety and precision that can be gotten from typical touchscreen finger swipes.
The 4-in. S Pen fits inside the body of the Galaxy Note and has a little button on the side that is used for accessing certain functions. For example, if you hold the button on the S Pen and tap the touchscreen twice, you'll get an app called S Memo Lite, which lets you draw on the virtual paper. From that screen you can tap on a pen icon to change pen styles that vary from pen to paintbrush, pencil or highlighter; you also have the ability to change the thickness and color of the line. For example, you can make a big thick yellow highlighter line or a graceful purple feathery line.
You can erase errors and delete entire virtual sheets of paper, or save them into the full S Memo app, which is included with the Galaxy Note. The memos and drawings can be shared on Facebook and other social networks or through text messaging or MMS.
This is only the beginning, however. You can also hold the button on the S Pen and then hold the S Pen to the Note's screen to take a screen shot. Once taken, an image editor opens automatically, giving you the same drawing tools found in S Memo. This means you can, say, take a photo of friend, draw a mustache or bushy eyebrows on it and send it off to Facebook. Or you can annotate a Web page, or an email document, then paste the image into an email.
The idea of editing screen shots with the S Pen can be both fun and practical, I discovered. For example, I could circle a mistake in a story I'd written for Computerworld and quickly send it to an editor with a note about the problem.
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text:
Lois and Clark
Bungled Suicide
Dark Magical Girl
Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure/Nightmare Fuel
Kid Detective
Steel (film)
Five-Man Band/Western Animation A-M
Trope, Music Tropes, Truck Driver's Gear Change
Truck Driver's Gear Change
"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun
And the truck changing gears was just music to our ears"
"Goodbye papa, it's hard to die
Three semitones means singing way too high..."
—A conversation on Facebook parodying one of the worst offenders.
The Truck Driver's Gear Change is a Modulation near the end of a song, shifting upwards by some relatively small pitch increment -- usually by one semitone (half-step) or whole tone (whole step), but occasionally by other intervals. It is so widespread in popular music that the term "Modulation" is sometimes considered synonymous with it, despite technically having a broader meaning. It typically occurs after a chorus or as part of a bridge, and is followed by a repeat of the chorus and often a Fade Out.
The term "Truck Driver's Gear Change" was apparently coined by this site, which compares the technique to a tired, overworked truck driver performing an unartistic, mechanical function. It's becoming something of a Discredited Trope these days, although it still shows up with some frequency in certain genres.
The Truck Driver's Gear Change is most often associated with uplifting ballads.
Older tropes include:
Verse (or A-section) in a minor key, chorus (or B-section) in the relative major key (or vice-versa).
Switching between tonic and dominant for the various parts of the song (almost ubiquitous in songs from about 1700 to 1950)
Please note that this is not a trope about Modulation in general -- that has its own page. This is about "shifting gears" for what is arguably called "dramatic effect" but what has devolved into a musical cliché: sliding up a step and remaining there for the rest of the song.
Compare Last Chorus Slow-Down.
Straight Examples:
"Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You" from The Music Man. the quartet haltingly sings "Lida Rose" to make it sound improvised, then they end by going up a half-tone for Marian's "Will I Ever Tell you", then the two are sung in counterpoint.
Happens twice in "Give A Little" by Hanson. It starts in C, moves up to D after the first chorus, and to E after the bridge.
Barry Manilow often uses this technique.
ABBA used the technique in their song "Hasta Manana", supposed to be used for Eurovision. Their manager, Stig Andersson, thought that a good pop song HAD to go up one half tone somewhere near the end. They even wrote a birthday song to him that says "We think you'll like it if we raise the song one half-tone..." in the bridge before raising it one half-tone for the final chorus.
In the song "Take My Time" by Junior Senior, it occurs once, ends, then fades back in and shifts up again. Honestly, it's quite exciting.
Almost required in Eurovision Song Contest entries, to the extent that this trope could be alternatively titled "Eurovision Key Change".
It has become more prominent in recent years; in The Eighties, by contrast, you might find this trope on only half the entries. Norway's entry in 1979, "Oliver" by Anita Skorgan, gets bonus points for modulating a full fifth.
Also frequently used by every other poppy Boy Band, especially ones from The Nineties.
"I Drive Myself Crazy" by 'N Sync goes up a minor third from A to C for the bridge, then back down mid-sentence before going up a major second to B for the last chorus.
The Backstreet Boys. Full stop.
Kiss's "Crazy Crazy Nights" is supposed to be the worst offender of the lot.
They invert it in "Black Diamond", which slows down progressively at the end.
R.E.M.'s "Stand". Twice.
The Mr. T Experience's unbelievably Pop Punk "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba".
Another arguably good gear-change occurs in Brian May's "Driven By You," a shamelessly upbeat rock song kicked up one more notch before it reaches its end.
"# 1 Crush" by Garbage, where the pitch change in the middle only makes the song scarier.
Done several times in the song "The Christmas Shoes", in an attempt to add to the sappy sentiment. This song shifts up by whole tones, starting in G, going to A, and ending in B - although it doesn't shift up by semitones, the gear-change effect is still there. It ends up almost too high for the main singer to sing, so they had to add a children's chorus at the end.
The 60s song "Love of The Common People" (recorded by lots of people, but never really a hit) has each verse in a different key.
"The Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold has one at the refrain at the very end of the song that almost makes it sound like a Hillbilly Hoe-down.
Used at the end of "Through the Looking Glass" by Symphony X. Given the epic chorus, it arguably makes the already awesome song way more badass.
Although the song changes key frequently throughout, this can be heard at the end of Symphony X's song Revelation (Divus Pennae Ex Tragoedia), where the chorus is played twice in a row but the second time it is modulated down a minor third.
Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer".
"My Generation", by The Who...multiple times. "You Better, You Bet" also does this near the end.
Ditto "Old Before I Die" by Robbie Williams, who apparently decided that just naming the song after a "My Generation" lyric wasn't enough. GearChange.org notes the similarity.
Kelly Clarkson plays this straight on most of her big hits -- just see "A Moment Like This" and "Because of You".
Nightwish love this trope, and they don't always limit themselves to a single semitone. Two of the more Egregious examples are Tarja's "Come Cover Me" (going up a perfect fourth from D to G), and Anette's "For The Heart I Once Had".
"Cake Dance" from the second installment of the There She Is saga.
Within Temptation's "Iron" does this for its final phase, taking an already awesome song Up to Eleven.
David Bowie's Magic Dance, from the Labyrinth soundtrack, shifts up two semitones in the middle of the song, staying in the new key for nearly two minutes before fading out.
There's one near the end of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life". During the sing-along at Graham Chapman's funeral, Eric Idle pointed it out.
"Yuki" by Miyuki Nakajima.
"Big Big World" by Emilia.
"Elvira" by The Oak Ridge Boys repeats the chorus several times at the end, with each repeat being a semitone higher. Bass singer Richard Sterban (who does the song's "oom papa mow mow") makes the key change along with everyone else, but the fact that it's in a higher key allows him to then drop it an octave.
Inverted by Conway Twitty on "I'd Love to Lay You Down", where the last few repetitions of the chorus are actually much lower.
Several songs have the chorus set in a higher key than the verses. Among them: "Sittin' on Go" by Bryan White, "Little Red Rodeo" by Collin Raye, "I Was" by Neal McCoy. The latter two were both written by Phil Vassar.
"The Way You Love Me" by Faith Hill takes it a step further. The chorus is set a whole-step higher than the verses -- except for the last line of the chorus, which modulates up another whole-step for the last before dropping back down to C Major in the verse.
"On Broadway" by The Drifters has one at the end of each verse.
The Anti-Christmas Song "Have I Got A Present For You" (not called "War On Christmas") has one before the last chorus.
"It's America" by Rodney Atkins does half of the chorus, modulates up a whole-step, then does the chorus again.
"Love Story" by Taylor Swift also does the same thing, going up from C to D major.
"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" by Reba McEntire also does its whole-step modulation halfway through the last chorus. Unlike the above two examples, though, it doesn't use the "chorus-and-a-half" trick.
Another Reba song, "Is There Life Out There?" does the gear change, then goes through an instrumental bridge between that chorus and the last chorus. (The bridge is usually omitted in radio airplay.)
Clay Walker's "What's It to You" does half of the chorus, goes up a half-step, does the rest of the chorus in the higher key, then repeats the entire chorus in the higher key.
Songs written by Dennis Linde do this now and then:
"The Talkin' Song Repair Blues" by Alan Jackson goes up a half-step before each new verse.
"Ten Pound Hammer" by Aaron Tippin key-changes before the third verse.
"Bubba Shot the Jukebox" by Mark Chesnutt also goes up a half-step for each successive verse, and then another half-step for the fiddle solo at the end.
The Jeannie C. Riley song "Harper Valley PTA" does this twice as the story the song tells progresses.
Stevie Wonder is a master of modulation, but the most famous of them is I Just Called to Say I Love You.
Notably he does it twice in that song, the first being slightly incongruous both in how early it appears (at the start of the second chorus) and in its positioning (between verse and chorus); the other appears in a more traditional position between the second and third choruses.
"Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys. Not sure if it occurred in the original Village People version.
"Opportunities" too.
Bobby Darin's version of "Mack The Knife".
"Paper Shoes" by Incubus, right after a fake ending. Also "Pendulous Threads"
Rascal Flatts' "Summer Nights" modulates upward twice. By the end it's way too high for lead singer Gary LeVox to sing, making his nasal squawk even more of a fingernails-on-blackboard moment than usual.
Incidentally, the "Summer Nights" of the "Grease" sound track also modulates up twice by semitones.
Rascal Flatts also do this on "Easy" in a particularly odd variant: the key jumps up a minor third (E to G) halfway through the second verse.
Carlene Carter's "Love Like This" (also recorded by Blackhawk) transposes up after the final chorus, so only the ending solo is in a higher key.
Dreamgirls does this with the R&B ballad-style songs "I Want You, Baby" and "I Am Changing."
Also common in duets, where the key change happens when the other person takes over. A notable example is Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood's "Squeeze Me In" (C for Garth and in D for Trisha).
Ty Herndon and Stephanie Bentley's "Heart Half Empty" starts in D major, jumps down to A major on Bentley's verse and chorus, then back up to E major for the last chorus, where they sing together.
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream" starts in C for Kenny, then goes down to A-flat for Dolly.
David Frizzell and Shelly West's "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" also starts in C for David and D for Shelly, which is rather interesting, as Shelly has a much lower voice.
When Brooks and Dunn recorded "Cowgirls Don't Cry," it was originally in A all the way through. Later on, they re-recorded it with Reba McEntire, who sings the final chorus in E. As if the sudden jump upward isn't jarring enough (the remixed version has a dead-stop before the key change, which isn't in the original), the backing track on the Reba version sounds like it was artificially pitched up for this chorus.
"Dream Boy/Dream Girl" by Cynthia and Johnny O. goes down a minor third for Johnny's verse, then back up afterwards.
Speaking of Garth, his original album version of "The River" has the gear shift, but he omits it when he does it live.
Leon Ashley's "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)" transposes upward as the tone of the song becomes somewhat darker.
Sting's "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" goes up a semitone (E-flat to E) as the tone of the song changes from cynical to happy.
Yes's "I've Seen All Good People" goes through the entire gearbox at the end.
Latin-Jazz singer Basia's song "Blame It on the Summer" does the gearshift for the final chorus, then gears back down to its original key for the outro.
"Yakko's World", the Animaniacs List Song, shifts up a semitone after each verse, ending up a minor third higher than it started.
The show's theme song itself starts in A-flat and goes through four changes to end in B-flat. When the show was aired in reruns on Nickelodeon, they abbreviated the intro and sped up the part that was in A-flat.
A staple of Richard Stone's work; he did this with the theme for Freakazoid as well.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
The Beatles did this multiple times, most famously in the last chorus of "Penny Lane."
"Penny Lane" is an interesting example. The chorus is a full tone lower than the verses; the gear shift at the end returns the song to its original key.
"Good Day, Sunshine" only shifts up at the very last moment during the fade-out. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)" modulates from F to G in order to blend in with the following song, "A Day in the Life".
Happens in Rob Zombie's "Superbeast," of all places.
"Dying In Your Arms" by Trivium.
You Raise Me Up...twice.
And in the most clichéd manner possible; as the website above says, it's basically an admission that the song should have ended before those two last unneccessary repeats of the chorus just put in to show off the fact that Josh Groban is, yes, a tenor.
"Winterdreams", the Power Ballad from the 1984 album Balls to the Wall by Accept, has three verses, and goes up a key at the beginning of the second verse and again at the third verse.
Buddy Rich's version of the song "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" does this twice.
Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling."
He did this first on "Easy" with his old band, the Commodores.
"I Just Can't Wait to be King" from The Lion King starts in F# and shifts into G near the end.
Bobby Hebb's "Sunny"...three times.
Trooper's song "We're Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time)" does this twice.
"There's a Light", the song written by Gregory Charles for the Olympic torch's relay across Canada, has a couple of gear changes.
"I Believe," the "anthem" of the 2010 Winter Olympics, also abuses this trope.
She Moves - Breaking All The Rules, like many boy and girl band songs, gear-changes up a whole tone at the bridge.
"Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed does this during its final chorus. Once when the guitarist was giving lessons on YouTube, he said plainly "Just play the main riff I just taught you and move up two strings".
This is a disturbingly common technique used by worship leaders in the Church of Christ, where, in an effort to emphasize a theme or message, the final chorus is raised by, presumably, a half step. However, the proliferation of worship leaders with no formal musical training has led to the idea that you have to do this, completely ruining the effect altogether. Also, they tend to miss the half step and send everyone with any sort of trained ear in the audience into crying fits.
Quite a lot of Christian music falls victim to this. It's astoundingly common in Contemporary Christian Music, Praise and Worship, and most forms of Gospel music. Some hymnals even contain pre-written modulations for each hymn, which organists can use to raise the final verse up that semitone. To be fair, it can be very tempting for a church musician to reach for this trick, cliché though it can be, since their job is to sustain musical interest while playing the same melody for several stanzas. And when it's done in African American Gospel music, it can be a reminder that Tropes Are Not Bad.
Cheap Trick's "Surrender" modulates right after the intro. And then again just before the last verse.
"Sleepless Night" from the Slayers OST.
"Where Everybody Knows Your Name", the theme song of Cheers.
A* Teens' pop gem "Bouncing off the Ceiling (Upside Down)" features this in the last choruses.
USA for Africa's "We Are the World."
Cher's "Strong Enough" does this first at the first chorus, then again at the final chorus.
"If I Could Turn Back Time" shifts up a minor third from B to D in the middle of the last chorus.
In the middle of a sentence, no less.
Back when she was with Sonny Bono, Cher asked him to write a song for her with a key change. His gift to her was, "I Got You Babe".
The 30-second theme played during the Final Jeopardy! round does this halfway through, though it goes up a minor third instead of the more-standard-for-this-trope minor second.
When the same melody became the theme song for the 1984 version, this trope was turned Up to Eleven: the song starts in B, goes up to C, then F, A-flat, B, D, F, then ends in A-flat. Every other rearrangement used afterwards has kept most of the key changes.
Westlife invariably have this in their songs. And if they are sat during the performance, they will simultaneously stand up and step forward as it happens.
Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck's cover of The Impressions' "People Get Ready."
Mitch Benn's "Boybands" lampshades this with "Off the stools!"
Janet Jackson's "Doesn't Really Matter" does this twice in its final choruses.
"Together Again", by a third.
Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" does a gear change a third down.
And her super-hit "I will always love you" does a memorable gear up change before the end (...I wish you love... (hold your breath...) AND IIIIIIII...!).
Jesse McCartney - "Because You Live" transposes up a minor third for the final choruses.
This is fairly common in the spacesynth/synthdance genre. Haggeman (Thomas Hagfors)'s songs "Digital Clearing Service (formerly Intimate Shaver)" and "Botte's Vernal Dance" both have a gear change downward during their bridge sections. The former changes back afterwards, the latter stays there. "Space Relations" has a standard upward major second gear change.
Another spacesynth/dance example: Myvoice - Alertia, from D minor to F minor. Myvoice's "Nosmo King" changes upward a minor second, then ends with a literal bang shortly after. "Far From Home" goes up from G minor to A minor for the bridge, then changes back.
Mindxpander - Star Runner (major second), Windchaser (minor third), and Town Circus (up twice, then down once). In fact, almost ever one of his songs does this in some form.
Laserdance's "The Lost Battle", "No Escape"(up a perfect fifth, back down, then up a second, then a minor third), "Voyage of Discovery", and "Fly Over The New Territory", all from the Laserdance Strikes Back album.
Anders Lundqvist's "The Ordeal" and "Hyperspace".
The Communards' cover of The Bluenotes's "Don't Leave Me This Way starts a step lower than the original, then changes to the original's key.
"MacArthur Park", at least Donna Summer's version, modulates its last refrain a step down.
"Do I Have To Say The Words?" by Bryan Adams shifts up a semitone in the middle of each verse.
"Love Don't Roam" from Doctor Who is a continuous escalation of gear changes.
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" shifts up a half-step before each verse, during the "Um-diddle-iddle-iddle-um-diddle-aye" bridge.
"Stepping Time" has one, as well.
The Mike Flowers Pops' version of "Wonderwall" shifts down a full step for the last verse.
Bad Religion - Infected.
The bridge of 3rd Party's "Can You Feel It" key-changes a third down.
The boss theme in Wonder Boy III Monster Lair for the Turbo Grafx 16 does this, although in-game, the boss timer expires before it reaches that part. The Ice World / Desert music also goes up a step.
Occurs frequently in MOD and Demoscene music. "Ethnomagic" by NHP goes up a whole tone in mid-riff halfway through the song. Purple Motion's "World of Plastic" goes up a minor third at the first refrain, and up another third at the second. "Shadowrun" also modulates by a minor third. "Satellite One", also by PM, changes keys four times before looping. "Control" by The Loop does a more conventional half-step up near the end.
Zager & Evans's "In the Year 2525" does this twice.
Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" goes up a major third (from E to A-flat) for the last refrain. "That's the Way it Is" goes up a perfect fourth to A.
Celine Dion is a repeat offender with this one. "Because You Loved Me" also features the same thing.
The Ending Theme of Count Duckula, which also starts a key higher than the Opening Theme.
"Sisters and Brothers" by the Voices of East Harlem, and "When We Grow Up" by Diana Ross, both from the children's songbook and album Free to Be You and Me The former's key change arrives with a crescendo after a Subdued Section, making it potential Nightmare Fuel.
Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" starts in D and gear-changes every subsequent verse except for the fourth, ending in F.
Power Metal bands in general tend to be fans of this trope.
The undeniably epic ending music from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past goes up a perfect fourth from C to F.
The ending music to Super Mario World goes from C to C#.
"Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley.
Terry Jacks's "Seasons in the Sun" does this three times -- once midway through the song, and twice towards the end.
"All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers has the bridge rather than the chorus shifting up four times, which is likely why the title is often mistaken to be some permutation of "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
"Jump (For My Love)" by The Pointer Sisters jumps up a minor sixth, from Bb to Gb, in the middle of the last chorus to boot.
"Thousandfold" by Eluveitie.
Also, "Inis Mona"
Deborah Cox's "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here" and "I Never Knew". Both key changes are rather awkward, the former does it between the second bridge and second chorus.
Raffi's cover of "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands."
Happens in the final verse of "Weird Al" Yankovic's country-and-western parody entitled (oddly enough) "Truck Driving Song". Considering Al doesn't use this trope in his other original songs, this probably counts as a lampshade hanging.
"When You Believe" by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston gear-changes twice, from D to E at the second chorus, then from E to F# at the final chorus.
The final chorus of Never Shout Never's "Can't Stand It" shifts up a semitone.
"Someone Else's Story" from Chess.
"Song of Love" from Once Upon a Mattress modulates up a semitone at the beginning of every verse after the first one.
Almost every song by Onitsuka Chihiro has a key change like this toward the end.
The same can be said for Ayumi Hamasaki.
Many Disney Animated Canon songs, such as "A Whole New World", which goes up a minor third for Jasmine's half of the song. Even better, it changes keys three times in the stage adaptation, going from E flat to G flat to E to G. The stage version of "Arabian Nights" also has a gear change.
Disney songs do this, full stop. "Prince Ali" does it about six times!
Dragon Force's "Fury of the Storm" and "Heart of a Dragon".
Sisqo's "Thong Song".
Johnny Cash's "Oney" uses both the traditional semitone variation and then the minor-third version: from A-flat to A to C.
"I Walk the Line" goes E-A-D-A-E. By the end, he's an octave lower than he started.
A handful of tracks from the game Playstation game Jumping Flash! transpose up a semitone at certain points, e.g. the first level and the last level.
Stage 7's theme in Battle Garegga shifts up a semitone every time it "loops" (it increases indefinitely if you listen to it in the sound test), and it starts to become Nightmare Fuel after a few increases.
"Wily's Castle Part 2" in Mega Man 2 consists of a 4-bar phrase that shifts up a semitone every cycle, and drops back down after going up a full octave.
Fangora's theme does something similar with a slightly longer period of repeat. Oh, and every other period has a kickass piano slide. The drop down so that it can repeat is really subtle, as well.
"Asterix" for the NES makes happy use of this trope, giving the already upbeat and cheerful tune in the first three "Gaul" levels an extra punch after its first loop.
The themes to Dallas and Knots Landing.
The Doors' "Hello, I Love You."
The second theme (1988-2001) to PBS's Nightly Business Report changed keys around the "circle of fifths", eventually coming back to C.
Wings for Marie/10000 Days (Wings Pt. 2) by Tool use this to great (and dramatic) effect towards the end of each song. Wings is A minor throughout most of the song, but at one point near the end, the guitar just decides to change the key to B minor. The effect is rather subtle and the song stays in this key until the climax, at which it reverts back to A for the outro. 10000 Days, as a continuation to the first part, is in A minor through the entire song, all the way up through the instrumental breakdown. The key change to B is much more dramatic as it happens right at the moment of climax and reverts back to A for the outro exactly the same way as in Wings, bringing it into a sort of reprise.
Mariah Carey's cover of Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" gear-shifts a half-step down.
"Wings" by Galneryus goes up a major third at the end (4 semitones or 2 whole steps), which is fairly uncommon.
Even J-pop does this. For example, Flowers by TЁЯRA, from Dance Dance Revolution Super NOVA 2.
The ending theme song in the second Care Bears movie shifts downward from G major to F major.
God Knows from the Suzumiya Haruhi anime.
Less common in Eurobeat than other genres, but "Goin' On" by Lolita goes from B to C at the last chorus. An unusual example is "Send Me an Angel"(no relation to the Real Life song) by Momo, which modulates the synthesizer riff a step down after the first chorus, but the rest of the song remains in the normal key. Later, the synth goes back up to its original key in mid-riff.
Happens in countless musical songs. "The Lambeth Walk" from Me & My Girl changes keys for every one of its fatiguing repetitions.
Most songs in Vanities: A New Musical have at least one gear change. "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" shifts up a step in the middle of the bridge, then up a half-step afterwards. "Setting Your Sights (Reflections)" goes from F to G (again mid-bridge), then down a minor third to E. "I Can't Imagine" goes up a step at the second verse, and up a another step in the usual place at the last chorus. The Cut Song "We're Gonna Be Okay" shifts a step down at the second verse, along with a standard last chorus half-step up key change.
Can't We Try by Dan Hill & Vonda Shepard does this by a half-step in mid-bridge. Then it goes up another half step a chorus later, in mid-sentence.
Bette Midler - "To Deserve You".
Jessica Simpson - "Where You Are", in typical power ballad fashion.
"The Rainbow Connection" modulates up by a half-step right before the last verse.
Unusually, especially for trance music, "Alegria" by Jonatan F. does multiple key changes during the final climax.
Scatman John's Scatman's World features a gear-change at the end.
Many, many Sonata Arctica songs, ranging from half a step ("San Sebastian") to a perfect fourth ("Don't Say A Word"). "Wildfire" even goes down a minor third.
Listen To Your Heart by Roxette shifts up a major third.
Edyta Gorniak's "One and One" and "Perfect Moment" (better known from being Covered Up by Robert Miles f/Maria Nayler, and Martine McCutcheon, respectively)
Live's "Run To The Water" modulates up a full step (C to D) for the final chorus and coda. Lampshaded in the video by the sky opening up and raining on the band and the drought-stricken futuristic society they've found themselves in.
Amusingly enough, Drive-By Truckers do this twice in "I Do Believe".
From Mega Man 4, Bright Man's theme goes up a full step after the first twenty seconds, a rare NES example.
Berlin's "Take My Breath Away."
Meshuggah's "Spasm" features guitars tuned down an octave and a half from standard. That's ridiculously low by any standards, but apparently it wasn't good enough for them, because the last repetition of the main riff goes down another half-step. So instead of showing off how high they can sing, the change shows off how low they can tune their guitars.
"Over the Hills and Far Away" by Gary Moore and made famous by Nightwish, in the final chorus.
Manor House Rally from Medal of Honor: Frontline shifts up a minor third; this section happens to be the second version of the Variable Mix in-game. Better yet, The Halftrack Chase moves up a step three times.
The Dream Sequence Love Song "I'd Rather Be Sailing" from the William Finn musical A New Brain features as straight an example of this trope as you can get.
Buckcherry's "For The Movies" modulates up halfway through the final chorus.
A "Visit Seoul" campaign had a song by both SNSD and Super Junior called S.E.O.U.L., which featured one of these. This makes the song sound quite bone-chilling.
Westlife's cover of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" (the original by the latter doesn't have it). Interestingly, the Westlife cover begins with a lower key than the original, then steps it up to the original's key at the end.
Billy Joel does have one example: "Tell Her About It", which is in B-flat for the verses and F for the choruses (the outro is the chorus in B-flat).
Guys and Dolls: "Adelaide's Lament" modulates up a semitone for the third part ("And furthermore..."). This was added to the show sometime after the original cast album had been recorded.
Likewise, "A Bushel and a Peck" goes up a semitone at the second verse, at least in the revival.
"No one Mourns The Wicked" from (duh) Wicked goes up a minor third to G, then back down to E at the very end.
"How the World Fell Under Darkness" by The Protomen features several modulations towards the end of the song.
The Black Eyed Peas started to do this on "Imma Be"... and then on the next album had two more, that even warn it's gonna change abruptly ("DIRTY BIT!" in "The Time (Dirty Bit)" and "MEGA SWITCH UP!" in "Just Can't Get Enough").
In Godspell, "We Beseech Thee" goes up a whole tone after the "boom chick" interlude.
In The Little Mermaid, "Under the Sea" goes up a whole tone at the end of the interlude, leading to a memorable, triumphant Crowning Moment of Awesome.
In Follies, "Losing My Mind" ascends to B major from its original key of A-flat major, the modulation being accompanied by a sweeping crescendo.
Oasis' "All Around the World" begins with several verses and choruses in B, hops up to C for a couple of choruses (but only one in the music video), and then concludes in D for the final twenty- or thirty-ish chorus repetitions. (Some sheet music transcriptions of the song also notate a few bars as being in A: the "It's gonna be OK" repeats between the C and D choruses.) Noel Gallagher commented, possibly with tongue in cheek: "Imagine how much better 'Hey Jude' would have been with three key changes towards the end!"
Radiohead's "Sulk" ascends from G to A for its guitar solo and final chorus.
In Leisure Suit Larry 5, the music in the Herman/Harmon Hollerith room shifts up a step when Larry and Michelle engage in you-know-what.
A rare Eurodance example is "Shocking The Dancefloor" by BPM. Other Eurodance examples include "Feel The Beat" by Beat Society, "Táncolj!" by Magic Kefir, "Let Me Love You" by Da Buzz, and "Life" by E-Type.
Maarja's song What in This World starts in C, but goes up to D right before the chorus plays the first time, and stays in D until it goes up to E right before the chorus plays the second time, where it stays for the rest of the song.
"Snoopy's Christmas (Christmas Bells)" by the Royal Guardsmen transposes up a semitone each verse -- three times in all. The song starts in F and ends in A-flat.
"Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders (full step)
Genesis did this with "Invisible Touch".
Type O Negative's "Haunted" does a gear change from A to Bb at the coda, after the "I'm haunted" refrain.
Edge of Dawn's "Save My Soul" is another genre-atypical(Futurepop) example, going from G minor to A minor for the last repetition of the chorus.
"Up The Junction" by Squeeze starts out in E, then drops to C# minor for the bridge, then goes up to D on the next verse, and finishes in the original key. What makes this interesting is that it's setting us up for a happy ending to the story the song's been telling, but the lyrics after the final key change turn out to be about how the singer's life completely went to crap.
Touhou songs are full of key changes, but an exemplary example would be Scarlet Symphony ~ Scarlet Phoneme, the theme song of Kurumi from PC-98-exclusive Lotus Land Story, which is nothing but key changes on a fourteen-second motif.
Dyce, a one-album Swedish Eurotrance group featuring Sofia Lovgren of Domino, did this with their obligatory ballad "Colors".
Britney Spears - "Lucky"
Taco did this in "After Eight" by a whole step at the second verse, and in "Puttin' On the Ritz" by a minor third at the last chorus.
"Sun of Jamaica", the biggest hit of Germany's Goombay Dance Band, goes up a whole step for the final repetition of the chorus, which then fades out.
Happens in Bocelli's "Con Te Partiro," a shift that usually provokes rapturous applause (see: the concert DVD A Night in Tuscany). Donna Summer's Translated Cover Version, "I Will Go With You", also does it.
Reina's "Find Another Woman" has a double minor third key change from Eb to Gb to A in the final chorus. "Anything for Love" does a traditional semitone modulation from D to Eb.
DJ Ötzi's songs "Hey Baby" and "Burger Dance" each have a key change a semitone up.
As an encore to the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert, Colm Wilkinson, Alfie Boe, Simon Bowman and John Owen-Jones (who have all played Jean Valjean in various performances) performed "Bring Him Home" as a quartet, and added one about two-thirds of the way through. It's more amusing because the song isn't actually performed that way in the musical.
The "Trololo" song by Eduard Khil does this a couple times.
Parodies, Subversions, and Lampshade Hangings:
Probably best exemplified by the Da Vinci's Notebook tune "Title of the Song," which actually points out that it's doing this: "Modulation and I hold a high no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ote..."
Subverted in Denmark's 1982 Eurovision Song Contest Entry, "Video Video" by Brixx ...the song goes into the bridge leading up to the final chorus ... there is tension in the air ... are we going up? - Nope, the orchestra HAMMERS THE ROOT NOTE HOME and we return to the original key, sing the last chorus and leave the stage.
Interestingly, Power Metal band Nocturnal Rites frequently puts at least one modulation in most of their songs, but rarely use this trope.
Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" contains a gear change, even being quite highly regarded by the gearchange.org site which is critical of the technique in general. It occurs on the word "change", which combines a lampshading with a Funny Aneurysm Moment, considering what was happening to Michael at the time.
Lampshaded by "The Song That Goes Like This" from the Monty Python musical Spamalot, which is a dramatic ballad about everything that occurs in dramatic ballads. The key change occurs upon the lyrics "And then we change the key", and the vocalists spend the first part of the next verse complaining the added difficulty of having to sing higher. Then there are two more key changes later on, with the singers swearing when they hear the final one coming.
The live version of Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life has the lead singer point out the key change.
Subverted in Motion City Soundtrack's "Fell In Love Without You": The key changes for a final repetition of the chorus, and it sounds as if the song is going to end immediately after. Instead, the song switches back to the original key and repeats the chorus one last time, giving the ending a slightly unnerving effect.
Lampshaded again in "Show Off," from the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, a song about how much the character wants to retire from show business and stop doing everything she's doing: "Iiiiiiiiii don't wanna change KEYS no more!"
Occurs, complete with a nice lampshade attached, in Mitch Benn's "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now", an Affectionate Parody of the tropes of post-Britpop British rock as exemplified by Coldplay: "And if you can doooo/A high bit in the middle eight, then yoooou/Have almost solved the riddle of just how/To sound like Coldplay now..."
Also Lampshaded in Mitch's West End Musical:
This is the great big opening song
The kind that Lloyd-Webber writes and arranges
It's actually very tricky to sing
It's got lots of unnecessary key changes
There, did you spot it? That was one there
We stared in C, now we're in D Major...
Occurs in the song "Haben Sie Gehoert Das Deutsche Band?" in The Producers. Franz Liebkind shouts out "Key change!" before the coda.
This is a Shout-Out to Mel Brooks' High Anxiety, where Dr. Thorndyke (played by Brooks) yells the same thing while singing the title song.
Occurs in the song "Two Nobodies In New York" from [title of show]. Like The Producers, Hunter yells "Key change!" before the song changes keys.
Done in this piano segment from The Muppet Show. Rowlf tells Fozzie, "Modulate!".
As mentioned above, Barry Manilow is so identified with this that when Ray Stevens recorded the parody "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", he made sure to include it. It can also be heard just a few seconds into the Not The Nine O'Clock News parody, Wet And Lonely.
Also Lampshaded in Stevens' cover of the theme from The Monkees, which he performs as an Austrian singing duo, both characters voiced by him. Come the key change, the characters get into an argument about going too high.
Inverted in the Forbidden Broadway parody I Couldn't Hit The Note, spoofing how Julie Andrews can't hit high notes anymore, the song keeps modulating down.
Done somewhat unintentionally during a performance of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" in The Polar Express. Because of an Overcrank, the recording slows down a bit and thus drops into a lower key. Seriously, an overcrank DURING A SONG?!?
In the movie Blast from the Past, the two main characters are listening to a Perry Como song on the car stereo, and Adam gets all excited over a slight key change towards the end.
Lampshaded in the With Lyrics version of the Final Fantasy Classic theme by brentalfloss:
Lyrics: Shine your light, the forces of evil can't outlast a mage, a knight, a weird little kid and a ninja master
KEY CHANGE, MOFO!
He uses the same gag again in Here at the Gaming Con.
In the "Weird Al" Yankovic / Kate Winslet (!) duet "I Need A Nap":
Both: I don't want to harmonize with you
Al: Change keeeeeeeeey!
Kate: Make him stop!
The game show Wheel of Fortune, between 1983 and the mid-2000s, used a theme song called "Changing Keys", a pretty obvious lampshading of this trope. The theme was remixed several times, with the last two remixes having few to no key changes.
Me First and the Gimme Gimme's have an unintentional parody of this during their cover of "Heart of Glass." The bad modulates higher with every chorus, and eventually the lead singer has to scream into the mike to make the band stop, explaining that he can't hit a note that high. The drummer then quips back "Dude, it's only three modulations."
In MC Lars' "True Player For Real", it would be played straight, were it not for him upright announcing at the shift, "Key change!".
The Bo Selecta Christmas Novelty song "Proper Crimbo" lampshades this with the lyric "Can I get a key change?". Bob Geldof seemed particularly amused.
Parodied and lampshaded in Truck Driving Song from the Swedish comedy show Macken, where a truck driver sings about his occupation. The last words in the chorus translates to "And if the song gets too boring, then I keep it cool. I change the key and shift it half a step", which then continues to happen throughout the song. Then he does it about ten times straight right at the end.
"Supernatural" by Wild Orchid. "Lift me up higher, higher and higher!" at the point of key change.
Now it's getting hairy, so we're changin' the key/Never underestimate, the power of D!
"This Is The Chorus" by Morris Minor And The Majors has the line, "this is the keychange, this is the keychange, it's just a standard device to stop us sounding mundane."
"Map Ref. 41ºN 93ºW" by Wire hangs a lampshade on this by announcing the dramatic chord change from the verse to the chorus with Colin Newman shouting, "CHORUS!" Also, "Being Sucked In Again", in which the entire verse part is made up of dramatic chord changes, and "Indirect Enquiries", where it's the whole freaking song.
Exaggerated - In Britain's Got The Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice, the deliberately cringeworthy "The Winner's Song" does this, and then does it again two measures later.
Parody of how Simon Cowell always puts in a Key Change into songs, particularly The X Factor winning songss.
The eponymous song from Beauty and The Beast: "As the sun will rise..."
Subverted by the Kaiser Chiefs in "I Predict A Riot" and in various other songs. Towards the end of the song they start shouting in a gradually rising pitch, as if building up to a modulation, but instead they remain in the same key.
Inverted and then played straight in the theme song of The Half Broken Music Box: The song's verse is in C major, but it unexpectedly shifts down to B major to start the refrain. Then for the second sentence of the refrain, it shifts back up to the original key of C major.
Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" indulges in a cry of "Gonna take it higher now!" and proceeds to shift up one semitone with all the finesse the trope name implies.
"I Just Had Sex", by the Lonely Island and featuring Akon, features a upshift towards its conclusion, as everyone joins in.
In The Brave Little Toaster, many of the songs include an instance of this. Most notably is near the end "Like a B-Movie". This bit is even amplified on the soundtrack version. It hurts a little.
Played with in a tiny piano piece by Leoš Janáček called Cekám Te! (Czech: I Am Waiting For You!) which consists of four four-bar phrases, arranged in a song-like AABA form. The piece is entirely in A major until the last two bars, which abruptly shift to D-flat. However, instead of going on to play the A section again in the new key, the piece just stops abruptly (on the dominant chord!) -- hence the title: it's "waiting for" a phrase in the new key which will never come.
Lampshaded In Disney's "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat", which says, "Let's take this to another key, modulate, and wait for me ..."
Axis of Awesome's "How To Write A Love Song", which dissects generic '90s R&B love songs, naturally includes a couple of gratuitous key changes, and accompanying lyrics explaining their role in the song.
"When you change the key in a love song/It means you're singing passionately."
Markoolio and Linda Bengtzing's "Värsta Schlagern" lampshades the hell out of every single music cliché to ever plague the Eurovision Song Contest, including this one ("Här kommer höjningen till slut!") as they go into the final chorus.
Beyoncé's "Love On Top" features a 4x combo gear change at the end.
They Might Be Giants' song "Birdhouse In Your Soul" employs this in much the same way as the above Beyoncé song, once between verses and several in a row during the ending repeat
Breaking Benjamin's "Forget It" is made of this trope; starting at a D#, the verse structure shifts up a semitone with each verse until it winds up at a G# for the last verse
The Idolmaster has a lot of music so having a lot of examples of this trope is not a surprise. That said, one song stands out in having no fewer than ten of these modulations, both up and down: "Inferno", one of Chihaya Kisaragi's songs.
In Marshall Crenshaw's "Monday Morning Rock," he shouts, "Ohhh.....key change!" just before the guitar solo.
Fellowship! The Musical parody of The Fellowship of the Ring has "The Lament of the Ring", which does this for visual comedy: each time Frodo changes to a higher key, he correspondingly stands up higher to prevent Boromir from taking the ring - while Boromir starts singing about how the key is getting too high for him to sing comfortably. Eventually Frodo is standing on tiptoes on a chair, and singing in falsetto.
The Super Mario Galaxy remix of the Super Mario Bros. main theme features this.
Subverted in the Manhattans' "Shining Star"; after the first chorus the song goes up from B Major to C Major on "loooooone", but goes back down to B Major on "ly". This is played straight later on.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.fandom.com/wiki/Truck_Driver%27s_Gear_Change?oldid=214600"
Music Tropes


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The first rays of the rising sun broke out over the horizon surrounding the still-sleeping town of Ottery St. Catchpole. The breaking sun cast its light on the small hills surrounding the village — and on the chimneys on the roof of a large, rather ramshackle house on the outskirts of the village. At first glance, the house looked as if it had once been a large stone pigpen, but rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high … and so crooked that anyone seeing it for the first time would think that it was being held up by magic.
As the sun rose further, a stray beam of sunlight illuminated a small rise standing to one side of the house – a small, grassy lump of soil and rock that stood close to the edge of the gardens surrounding the house. An ancient stone bench (actually, two slabs of stone set upright with a longer slab on top of these) had been placed on the rise, allowing anyone sitting there to enjoy a view of the rising sun as it welcomed a new dawn.
On this particular day, the rising sun showed two figures on the bench. They were so still that a casual observer would have mistaken them for the concrete gnomes populating many a garden around the country. A closer look, however, would have revealed that these were definitely not gnomes.
One figure was a rather petite and slim girl, with bushy brown hair streaming over her back, wrapped in a red-and-gold Quidditch robe. Chocolate-brown eyes looked out on the rising sun, slim hands clutched tightly at the robe around her shoulders. The other was a medium-height teenaged boy with black, unruly hair, wearing glasses which reflected back the light of the rising sun. If one could look behind those glasses, one would have seen brilliant, emerald-green eyes that stared out at the lightening ground, seemingly seeing nothing but, in fact, acutely aware of their surroundings.
They'd been sitting in companionable silence in the garden for some time, waiting quietly for the dawn to break. The boy had woken up earlier and couldn't sleep; rather than laze around for a lie-in, he had decided to step outside and enjoy the silence and calmness of the remaining night.
Silently he had crept out of his bed in the cramped bedroom, putting on a maroon sweater with a lion knitted on the front, and pausing only to grab a scarlet Quidditch robe from his trunk before stealing out of the house, and into the cool air of the night. He had been sitting on the bench for only a few minutes when he felt the presence of someone moving around in the garden.
Startled, he had looked up into a pair of sleepy brown eyes framed by bushy brown hair. The girl looked as if she were sleep-walking – except her eyes were wide open. She silently stopped beside him, and sat down on the bench, careful to keep some space between them.
No words were exchanged – nor were words needed to be said. They were friends … the best of friends, who sometimes seemed to communicate at a level where words were irrelevant.
After a while, he felt the girl shivering; her nightdress, while comfortable for sleeping in a warm and cozy bed, was decidedly not suited for a cold stone bench with a soft but cooling breeze blowing. Silently, he removed his robe and wrapped it around her, at the same time, rubbing her arms through the fabric to help her warm up – she looked up at him and smiled, stopping him from his actions.
She wrapped the robe more closely around her, and leaned gently against him. He shifted a bit, unconsciously shielding his companion from the wind, and placed an arm around her back to provide some support as she tried to slump comfortably on the backless bench.
Nothing needed to be said as they both waited for the dawn.
Neither one knew that someone was watching them with great interest.
She was a rather plump woman with a very pleasant demeanor at most times (only her family and their closest friends knew how swiftly that could change into a rampaging tiger when aroused) who was watching the scene from a large bedroom in an upper story. She had a wide smile on her face as she watched the two sitting on the bench. 'How romantic,' she sighed, and laughed softly to herself. Generations of Weasleys had sat on that same bench over the centuries, either watching the rising or the setting of the sun, or contemplating the stars and the moon on many a warm (or even cold) night … and sometimes, sometimes, letting the magic of the spot pull them into a kiss – or a promise.
She smiled at the memory and half-turned to call Arthur to join her. She stopped when she saw the empty bed; her husband and Percy had been called to the Ministry of Magic for some emergency or other at 3:30 in the morning. Arthur had shaken her awake to tell her that he was leaving, and had given her a kiss before Apparating out of the house.
She had been unable to sleep since then, and had been sitting at the window of the darkened room, looking out at the stars when she saw the boy walk out to the bench. She wondered if she should go down and talk to him ('Goodness knows, he needs someone to talk with after what happened during the year,' she thought) but decided to wait for a little bit. It was a good thing, too; less than five minutes later, she saw the brown-haired girl stepping out of the house and walking towards the bench.
The only problem, she sighed, was that neither one of the two sitting on the bench was a Weasley. The boy was Harry Potter, better known in wizarding circles as 'The Boy Who Lived,' Seeker for the Gryffindor House Quidditch team, Hogwarts Champion and winner of the recent Tri-Wizard tournament — and the only person in the entire wizarding world who had come up against the Dark Lord four times – and lived to tell the tale.
And incidentally, her youngest son's best friend.
She shivered slightly as she recalled the adventures and near-death experiences the three, especially Harry, had gone through in the past four years. To think that so much has happened to children barely in their teens! They should be enjoying themselves now, doing the things that wizarding children their age should be doing … not walking around with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Or, perhaps, on Harry's shoulders.
She muttered darkly to herself. She wondered what sort of Divinity there was to have placed such a burden on the young boy … parents killed when he was barely a year old by the Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort, for reasons still unclear … Voldemort turning his wand on the baby Harry to kill him, too … the curse rebounding on the Dark Lord, and rendering You-Know-Who (even she could not say his name out loud) a mere shadow of his evil, corrupt self.
Many in the wizarding world looked up to Harry Potter as a hero, because of that first abortive encounter with the Dark Lord, which had led to over a decade of serenity and quiet after that incident … long years of peace that more than compensated for the years of terror when Voldemort was at his prime.
Very few wizards or witches, however, knew of the emerging threat of a revived Dark Lord, which had started the year that Harry Potter re-joined the wizarding world when he went to Hogwarts – an attempt by the still-weakened Voldemort to steal the Sorcerer's Stone in Harry's first year … the opening of Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets in his second year … making use of the revived Tri-Wizards Tournament to trap Harry and use him in ensuring You-Know-Who's resurrection to flesh-and-blood life.
Molly knew of these developments, in part because of her son Ron's involvement in these adventures with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger … and also because the emerging evil had struck directly at her family in the Trio's second year at Hogwarts. It was Harry who rescued her youngest child and only daughter, Ginny, from the Chamber of Secrets. Working with clues provided by the brainy Hermione (who had provided Harry with a vital piece of the puzzle even when Petrified and in the hospital), and the able (although reluctant) support of Ron and his Spell-o-taped wand, Harry had gone into the Chamber after Ginny – emerging triumphant, and bearing with him the sword of Godric Gryffindor.
Molly Weasley shuddered again at the memories. There were times when she wondered whether Ron's friendship with The Boy Who Lived was a blessing — or a curse. Ron, a normal (for wizards) 16-year old boy should have been enjoying the summer with his family and what friends he would have had at that age, rather than being involved in more adventures and than most older wizards did in their whole lifetimes! He'd already been confined to the Hogwarts' hospital wing once in his third year, when most students never even saw what the hospital looked like.
Hermione herself had been confined in the hospital in her second year; however, being Petrified, she had no knowledge or awareness of what happened until she was revived with Mandrake potion – after which Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts' nurse, allowed her to go off immediately to the Great Hall for the celebratory feast.
Harry, on the other hand, had been in the hospital wing at least once for every year he had been in Hogwarts. The Weasley twins, Fred and George, often teased him about naming the Hogwarts' hospital "The Harry Potter Hospital Wing" in his honor.
There was no doubt that Harry had been very lucky. Molly wondered, however, whether Harry's luck will one day run out – and drag one or both of his friends down with him. Deep down, she hoped that it would not be Ron … losing a child was something she could barely comprehend – or even contemplate.
She turned away from the window, tears prickling at her eyes, to look at a picture on her bedside drawer. It had been taken soon after she had given birth to Ginny; she saw a younger self with a baby Ginny in her arms, waving at the camera.
But there were moments like this, sitting in the dark with Arthur out on another midnight emergency for the Ministry of Magic, when she wondered whether her deep-seated desire to have a daughter was an indulgence it would have been better to forego.
Molly sniffed a little at the memory. She missed Bill, who had been working for some time as a curse-breaker at Gringott's in Egypt. Her eldest had an unusually well-developed sense of responsibility even as a boy; it was Bill that she had turned to in order to keep her rowdy brood in line, Bill who had watched over his younger brothers as she went about her daily chores … and Bill who had taken over much of the caring for the baby girl that she loved.
As the boys grew older, however, it seemed that it was only Bill who maintained his unrestrained and open affection for the youngest Weasley. Not that the others had no use for little Ginny … it was just that whatever love and affection they had for her was overshadowed by their own personalities.
Charlie, for example, had been as unrestrained and affectionate towards Ginny as Bill had ever been; he was just too obsessed with Dragons and Quidditch to give Ginny the care and concern that Bill gave without reservation. Percy … Percy's sense of responsibility was firmly focused on his "career" (a game plan which will culminate in becoming the youngest ever Minister of Magic). Percy, therefore, tended to treat Ginny as if she were a subordinate, rather than his youngest sister.
The Twins … were as they had always been: inveterate jokers, quick with a pun or a joke (sometimes to the point of utter disrespect), and, too often, a reckless tactlessness that often got them into trouble … and, too often, inadvertently embarrassing Ginny.
And Ron … Ron had been the most insecure of the brothers – probably because it was so difficult to find his own place in the sun, given that he had five brothers who had the opportunity to do everything before he did it. That same insecurity led to a confused relationship with his youngest sibling: alternately affectionate and caring, teasing and embarrassing, tactless and bossy – which wasn't helped by having a hair-trigger temper too easy to rouse.
As had happened the day they learned that Ginny had disappeared, kidnapped by the unknown horror that lived within Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets.
And that incredible moment when the door to the office opened and Fawkes the phoenix flew in, leading Harry, Ron and a shaken and crying Ginny into the room.
Ginny was extremely pale and thin, having been held in the Chamber for almost a day without food or water. The front of her robes were wet from the river of tears she had been shedding since Harry woke her up from her enchanted sleep, after burying the basilik's fang in Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, thus breaking the spell that had held her for so long.
Ron, caked in mud and dust from trying to move rocks and stones around the ruined tunnel to make an opening into the Chamber of Secrets, also pale and shaken from the ordeal … but not as much as Harry.
And Harry Potter, barely thirteen years old, covered in slime and the blood of the basilisk, clutching in one hand the ruined diary of the young Voldemort (or Tom Riddle as he was then known), a jewel-encrusted sword and the school's Sorting Hat tucked in his belt, exhausted but still half-dragging, half-carrying a still-sobbing Ginny Weasley.
Molly could remember every detail of the incredible story that Harry told them all that night. Later that evening, she and Arthur had related the story to the rest of the family: Bill and Charlie, who had Apparated in from Egypt and Romania, fully expecting never to see their beloved sister again; Percy, Fred and George who had opted out of the celebratory feast in the Great Hall to be with their sister as she slept in the hospital wing. Only Ron wasn't there – he had been with Harry and Hermione during the feast, a celebration that he so richly deserved, having shared the dangers of the Chamber with Harry.
As Molly ended the narrative, she could see the looks being exchanged by the brothers, and the glances they were giving their sleeping sister. Without a word being spoken, they had all reached a silent agreement: there was now a new member of their family, and they would be extending the same love and protection they had always given their sister, to Harry Potter.
Molly remembered with fondness the family's trip to Egypt that same summer, helped by the incredible luck of Arthur's winning the annual Daily Prophet's Grand Prize Galleon Draw. It had given all of them a chance to recuperate, to mend the pains and memories of the previous year, especially the guilt felt by Percy, the twins, and Ron for their constant teasing of Ginny during the school year, and not paying enough attention to her to prevent her from being enchanted by the diary of the twice-be-damned Tom Riddle.
It was during one dinner in Cairo that Ginny, who had studiously avoided discussing the Chamber of Secrets all the time, suddenly asked Ron how he and Harry were able to find her in the nick of time. Although she had been in McGonagall's office when the tale was first told, little had penetrated her numbed brain. Later, of course, she had been under a Dreamless Potion when the story was told to the rest of the family.
Molly could still hear Ron's voice in her mind: "I don't mind telling you, Ginny, that if Harry hadn't found that page in Hermione's hand when we visited her in the hospital, we wouldn't have known where to start.
As the tale ended, Molly caught the glances and looks being exchanged by the older brothers with their father, and then herself. Again without words, a silent agreement was reached: Hermione was now a member of their family, and would be given the same affection, protection and respect that they were giving to Harry and Ginny.
Molly knew that it was for this reason that the older brothers and Arthur had scrimped every stray Knut they could get their hands on, as well as Arthur practically twisting and threatening to break arms and legs in the Ministry, in order to get the prized seats for the Quidditch World Cup.
It was worth it, they all thought. It was an opportunity for the whole family to gather – and for Bill and Charley to get to know the newest members of the family … the members to whom they owed their sister's life.
Molly glanced out the window and saw that the day was well and truly started, with the sun finally breaking out on the horizon, lighting even the corners of her darkened room. She should go down to start breakfast for her family, but hesitated for a moment. She knew that the moment Harry and Hermione heard her clattering around the kitchen, the two of them would be in there trying to help out … even though there was not that much help needed in her magic-run kitchen.
She was loath to see them doing chores around the house; they were family, after all, but she knew that there was little she could do to stop them. Hermione had been too well brought up by her Muggle parents to impose herself on a household where she was, after all, a guest. Harry, on the other hand, would also feel uncomfortable doing nothing to help in a household where he truly felt he belonged.
Harry still had his arm around Hermione's back, supporting her, while Hermione's head with its bushy brown hair was also resting on Harry's shoulder, leaning back against Harry. She also had one arm around Harry's waist, as if she was supporting him. Harry, however, appeared to be resting his cheek on top of her head – seemingly relaxed and contented just sitting there with his best friend.
Molly studied them closely, and was surprised as a wave of mingled disappointment and hope passed through her mind.
It should have been a most romantic pose for the two young people. And yet, Molly could not feel any sense, or aura, of romance emanating from the two. It just seemed to be a very … comfortable, contented … even warm pose for the two. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing romantic … nothing sensual about it.
They were two people sharing a moment of comfort together.
Best friends, definitely. More than best friends … and Molly realized that only time will tell.
Molly felt a slight ray of hope beating in her heart. The more she got to know those two, the more she hoped – and yes, she admitted to herself, prayed and prayed hard – that they would become really, truly, members of her family.
Hermione's coolness and logic were the perfect balance to Ron's impulsive nature and fiery temper. Her intelligence also was not to be sneezed at; at the same time, Molly dismissed Ron's oft-said complaints about Hermione's bossy nature and tendency to run to the library whenever confronted with a problem. He needed someone like that to keep him focused on the important things … he still hadn't realized that being born a wizard to an ancient and honorable wizarding family was never enough.
Nothing would ever replace knowledge and understanding of how the wizarding world and magic operated. Being born to a wizarding family meant only a longer exposure to magic, and perhaps, the confidence to do magic instinctively and without fear of the consequences. But all that that would make you is just an average wizard.
But combining one's innate talents and confidence with knowledge and understanding would make one a truly outstanding wizard. Hermione had that and more; Molly knew that it was only through her sheer persistence and bossiness that Harry and Ron were getting better than average grades in school.
She sighed, again. At least, Harry seemed to be "getting it" (in the quaint language that her children used.) He seemed to understand the need for knowledge of magic to supplement his own innate skills, sharpening the latter into a powerful combination of inner magic and knowledge.
Harry, on the other hand, had been gaining both the confidence and knowledge he needed to become an extraordinary wizard. Again, he may have the blood of wizards running through his veins, but his constant companionship with Hermione had helped sharpen his skills … to the point that he was able to defeat Voldemort in a wizard's duel.
Molly had also learned of Harry's mastery of the Patronious Charm when Remus Lupin had passed by The Burrow on a mission for Dumbledore. She herself, in spite of the centuries of wizard blood in her veins, had never been able to conjure up a Patronious as easily as she had heard Harry did – and at only fourteen, at that!
Arthur could – but it often took too much out of him. Again, it was totally different from what she heard Harry could do – apparently, he could conjure up a powerful Patronious whenever needed, without the drain on his inner strength that made it so difficult for many wizards or witches to make effective use of the charm.
But it was Harry's innate gentleness and caring nature that had always touched her heart, from the moment she first met him on Platform 9 and ¾ over four years before. It was just the gentleness and caring that Ginny needed to build up her confidence and self-esteem; although her brothers loved her and protected her, their constant teasing and jokes (especially from the twins) had not done much to build her confidence up.
Molly squirmed again in embarrassment at that talk with her youngest child. For lack of a few silver Sickles, a life was almost lost.
But with Harry … with Harry's kindness and gentle nature, Ginny would have been protected from all that. Ginny would have been covered with a loving protection from someone who, having experienced so little of it from others during his formative years, would understand how it felt – and would have an abundance of it to give in return.
Molly thought of her two daughters – the real one, and the "adopted" one – and considered how they had dealt with their relative insecurities. Hermione had covered it up with her bossy nature and know-it-all, smarty pants attitude … Ginny, on the other hand, had nothing like that to fall back on, and allowed her insecurities to lead her to the diary from hell.
And yet, when she realized what was happening, she had instinctively tried to turn to Harry for help. Ginny had confessed to her mother, months afterward, that she had tried to tell Harry about what was happening, and her fears that she was losing her sanity. It was the constant teasing of her brothers, however, that prevented her from doing so … that, and the fear that Harry would only have laughed at her, in much the same way that her brothers often laughed at her.
Ginny admitted to her mother that, deep down, she knew that Harry wouldn't laugh at her … but she just couldn't be sure of it. Which had led to the unfortunate set of circumstances … even to the point of stealing the diary from Harry's dorm, rather than take the risk that he would get a chance to read what she had written. In the end, Tom Riddle had gotten more and more control over her … leading her, finally, to the Chamber of Secrets, and the certain death that awaited her there.
Until Harry and Ron came to the rescue.
Molly Weasley shook her head, and sighed. She looked out the window again, and watched Harry and Hermione as they sat together in comfortable silence watching the sun rise.
'It could still go either way,' she thought. 'What makes them so perfect for Ron and Ginny also makes them so perfect for each other. I only hope that they both recognize what they have … what they found in each other … and grow stronger together.
With that thought, Molly Weasley stood up and started to prepare herself for the day ahead. She took one final look around the room, and her eyes rested on the photograph of herself and the baby that was Ginny in her arms.
She took one final look at Harry and Hermione, still sitting on the ancient stone bench, watching the sunrise in comfortable silence.
She stepped out of the room to prepare breakfast for her family – the family that included two people who were still not aware that someone had been watching them the whole time.