Musical Cadences Piano Lab and Free Poster

What is a Cadence in Music?

Cadences in music are usually the two chords at the end of a phrase.

You can compare them to punctuation marks in sentences. 

Some phrases leave you feeling like the song isn't finished. What comes next?

Other cadences sound final like you are finally at the end of the song!

Introducing 5 Types of Cadences

Click Teoria.com Cadences to listen to the samples of different types of cadences.

Perfect Authentic: V-I Sounds like the end.

Imperfect Authentic: V-I + inversion Sounds like the end...but less final than perfect.

Half: I-V Sounds unfinished like a question.

Deceptive: V-vi or V-IV   V chord deceives you and doesn't lead to I. 

Plagal: IV-I  aka "Amen" cadence

Free Cadences Poster

Cadences and Punctuation Comparisons

Perfect Authentic is like an Exclamation Point !

The musical idea sounds finished, like a good ending point.

Imperfect Authentic is like a Semicolon ;

The phrase sounds complete, but not as perfectly restful as perfect authentic.

Plagal is like a Period. It's the end of an idea but not as forceful of an ending as Authentic (!).

Deceptive is like Dot, Dot, Dot To be continued...

This makes me think of a recent movie my kids were totally unhappy with, because the end said "To Be Continued" and left them wanting to hear more.

Cadences Games

Theta Flash Cadences: practice identifying perfect authentic, imperfect authentic and plagal cadences.

Challenge Game: Theta Speaker Chords Practice identifying I, IV and V chord patterns

Hint: Perfect Authentic Cadences end with the tonic (1st note of the scale) in the melody and as the root of the bass.