Hypertext Webster Gateway: "modulation"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Modulation \Mod`u*la"tion\, n. [L. modulatio: cf. F.
modulation.]
1. The act of modulating, or the state of being modulated;
as, the modulation of the voice.
2. Sound modulated; melody. [R.] --Thomson.
3. (Mus.) A change of key, whether transient, or until the
music becomes established in the new key; a shifting of
the tonality of a piece, so that the harmonies all center
upon a new keynote or tonic; the art of transition out of
the original key into one nearly related, and so on, it
may be, by successive changes, into a key quite remote.
There are also sudden and unprepared modulations.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
modulation
n 1: a musical passage moving from one key to another [syn: {transition}]
2: (electronics) the transmission of a signal by imposing it on
a carrier wave by changing the carrier's amplitude or
frequency or phase
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