Cadences and Their Uses

Question

Hey musicians and song writers! I wanted to reach out and see if anyone is familiar with cadences and how they are used in songwriting, theory (jazz and classical) and how you can use them in your songwriting?

If you are interested, let me know and I will be more than happy to review how cadences can be extremely helpful and useful in both writing and learning songs.

Answer 1

Keep in mind: cadences are much more than harmonic formulas/cliches. A cadence is, fundamentally, solely an aspect of the music's form. Harmony can be expressed in a cadence, but it's not required. Pitch as a whole isn't, in fact: a non-pitched instrument, like a snare drum, can express a cadence. It's purely about the nature of a musical idea's structural form.

All cadences communicate closure, with varying possible degrees. In terms of how they relate to form, it helps most people to think of cadences as happening in either/both the fourth & eighth measure of a larger musical phrase.

Cadences generally have some contrasting character in the musical details, when compared to the first part of the musical phrase.

For example, a melody that started off with:

1. a relatively inactive rhythmic character
2. a lyrical, legato character
3. soft, quiet character

May punctuate its cadence with:

1. active, rapid rhythmic character
2. sharp, staccato character
3. Loud, assertive character

Try this out yourself: sing a simple, four-measure melody. In the latter half of the fourth measure, change the character of the melody in some way to accentuate the cadence. Seriously, sing it right now!

This contrast is to make the cadence more impressionable and impactful - as contrast often does - creating a richer musical effect overall. The contrast doesn't have to be as vivid as the example that I gave above, but generally there will be some perceptual difference, even if slight.

When listening to music, listen for points of cadence & ask yourself these two things:

1) How strong is this cadence compared to the other cadences in this section/this song as a whole? It's a continuum.

2) How do the characteristics of the music differ during a cadence vs what preceded said cadence?

I hope this helps!

Answer 2

In western music theory, a cadence is "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution." In other words, cadences are a way of establishing finality or a pause in a musical phrase, alike to a comma or period in a sentence in the english language. There are many types of cadences; however, the most common types in popular music are perfect authentic cadences and imperfect authentic cadences. To answer your question about how to use them in songwriting, for a perfect authentic cadence specifically, you would move from a dominant chord (V) to the tonic (I), which makes a general authentic cadence. To make it a perfect authentic cadence, if we are viewing it in western four part writing (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass), you would need to have the tonic (I) in the soprano part as well as in the bass. If the soprano is the third or fifth of the tonic chord, it is an imperfect authentic cadence, which is weaker. There are other cadences to mess around with such as a plagal cadence which moves from a predominant chord (iv) to the tonic (I), a deceptive cadence which moves from the dominant chord (V) to the six chord (VI), and even a half cadence which moves from a predominant chord (iv) and ends on the dominant chord (V).

Hopefully this answered your questions!