Musical Cadences

Cadences are like the punctuation marks in music. Pairing chords in a certain order can create a feeling of tension, questioning, surprise or peaceful resolution. 

Watch this Short-ish Explanation of Cadences to learn more.

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.