Cadences: How Phrases End

Music is organised in phrases, and phrases end with punctuation. A cadence is that punctuation — the last two chords of a phrase, and the reason one section feels finished while another feels like it is still going.

There are four worth knowing, and you already have the chords for all of them.

The perfect cadence is V to I. It is the full stop: the dominant's tritone resolves, the bass falls a fifth, and everything settles. If a song needs to sound properly over, this is how it ends.

G7

G7, the V chord in C.

C

Resolving to C in root position, with the root in the bass. That is a perfect cadence, and it is the strongest ending available — the bass falls from G to C and the phrase closes.

The plagal cadence is IV to I — F to C. It resolves too, but more gently, because there is no tritone straining to be fixed. It is the sound of an amen at the end of a hymn, which is why it is sometimes called the amen cadence, and it is all over gospel and soul.

The half cadence ends on V instead of going to it. The phrase stops on the dominant and hangs there, unresolved, which makes it a comma rather than a full stop. It is how a verse gets you to lean into the chorus.

The deceptive cadence is the interesting one. Everything sets up a perfect cadence — the V chord arrives, your ear is certain the I chord is next — and then the song lands on the vi chord instead.

Am7

A minor seventh. Arriving here from G7, where C was expected, is a deceptive cadence — it shares two notes with C major, so it is nearly the right answer, which is exactly why it works.

That near-miss is what makes it useful. Because A minor contains C and E, two of the three notes of a C chord, the resolution is partly satisfied and partly denied. The phrase does not end, so the song has to keep going, and composers use it to extend a section that was about to finish.

A way to hear all four quickly: play the same four bars and change only the last chord. End on C after G7 and the phrase closes. End on A minor and it continues. Stop on the G7 and it hangs. Approach the C from F instead and it settles softly. Nothing else changed, and the meaning of the phrase changed completely each time.