Identifying Cadences by Ear

The previous lesson practiced identifying chords one at a time. This one listens to connections between two chords.

It is training to identify the cadence types of Unit 4 without a score. This is not merely a classification exercise: knowing the cadence means knowing where a phrase divides and how strongly, which is the basis for grasping the structure of a piece.

Narrowing with three questions

As before, do not try to choose one of five outright. Ask three questions in order.

Question 1 — does it end on the tonic?

If not, it is a half cadence, and you are done. Only the half cadence fails to end on the tonic, so this first question removes the most candidates.

Question 2 — if not the tonic, what arrived instead?

If vi arrived in place of the tonic, it is a deceptive cadence. Settled in one step as well.

Question 3 — if it is the tonic, what preceded it?

Preceded by the dominant it is an authentic cadence; preceded by the subdominant, a plagal cadence.

They line up by strength of closure

Even without answering all three questions, the strength of the sense of ending will get you part of the way.

Cadence	Sense of ending	Impression
Perfect authentic	★★★★★	closes completely
Imperfect authentic	★★★★	closes but leaves resonance
Plagal	★★★	lands, but with little push
Deceptive	★★	nearly lands and swerves
Half	★	stops partway

The five endings compared

▶Authentic▶Plagal▶Deceptive▶Half

Check: All are in C major and the chords leading up are the same. Only the ending differs. The sense of closure weakens as you go down the list — the first shuts completely, and the half cadence at the end sounds like stopping in the middle of a sentence. This is practice at hearing where the discourse ends and where it continues.

IV – V – I

Check

You hear a progression whose final chord does not settle at all, as though the discourse stopped partway. Which cadence should you suspect first?

Half cadenceDeceptive cadencePlagal cadencePerfect authentic cadence

Check answer

Deceptive against plagal — the expectation is defeated in different places

These two are easily confused, so it is worth separating them.

A deceptive cadence defeats the destination. The music reaches the dominant, you brace for the tonic, and it swerves to vi. What precedes is as expected; only the final chord differs.

A plagal cadence differs in route. The destination is the tonic, as expected, but the road there was the subdominant rather than the dominant. With no leading tone, there is no sense of being pushed in.

	Preceding	Final	What is defeated
Deceptive	dominant (as expected)	vi (different)	the destination
Plagal	subdominant (different)	tonic (as expected)	the route

Fig. 2 shows that in a deceptive cadence the upper three voices are almost identical to the tonic chord. C and E belong to both chords, so only the bass changes. That is why it feels like landing and yet not landing, and it means following the bass will identify it.

Perfect and imperfect are decided by the soprano

The two kinds of authentic cadence use the same chords and cannot be told apart by the harmony. The dividing line is where the soprano lands.

• soprano arrives on the tonic → perfect authentic cadence
• soprano arrives on the third or fifth → imperfect authentic cadence

(A final tonic chord in inversion also makes it imperfect.)

Perfect against imperfect

▶Perfect authentic▶Imperfect authentic

Check: The chords are V – I in both, entirely identical. Only the landing point of the top voice differs. The first arrives on the tonic C and shuts precisely. The second arrives on the third, E, and closes while leaving resonance behind. The convention is imperfect for divisions inside a piece and perfect for the very end.

soprano lands on C

The top voice carries well, so following it deliberately makes it audible. You can restate the question as whether the last note of the melody is the tonic.

Check

Why are imperfect authentic cadences used at internal divisions and perfect ones at the end?

Perfect authentic cadences are easier to playGrading the strength of closure tells the listener where the real ending isImperfect authentic cadences are shorterThey use different numbers of chords

Check answer

Minor keys have one more

Beyond these five, one form occurs only in minor: the Phrygian cadence.

It moves from first-inversion iv to V and is, as an ending, a kind of half cadence. It does not sound like an ordinary one.

The cue for identifying it is the half-step descent in the bass. An ordinary half cadence has the bass leap to the dominant or move by whole step; a Phrygian cadence slides in from above by half step. The soprano usually rises a half step at the same time, producing a distinctive gesture of the outer voices opening in opposite directions as they close.

The name derives from the Phrygian mode, but the cadence itself belongs to minor-key contexts and is by no means limited to Phrygian pieces.

An ordinary half cadence and a Phrygian cadence

▶Ordinary half cadence▶Phrygian cadence

Check: Both stop on the dominant in C minor. In the first the bass rises a whole step from F to G. In the second it falls a half step from Ab to G. The destination is the same dominant chord, and arriving from above rather than below makes a completely different impression. The Phrygian version sounds older and more taut.

iv – V (bass F → G)

Real music has more chords

Exercises sound only two chords, but real music has chords leading up to a cadence as well. What you judge is still only the last two.

One caution, though. A second-inversion tonic chord is sometimes placed before the dominant — the cadential 6-4 of Unit 4. The ear then hears “tonic, dominant, tonic,” but the first tonic is inverted and functioning as an ornament of the dominant. As a cadence it is a V–I authentic cadence.

Following the bass settles it. In a cadential 6-4 the bass does not move and stays on the same note as the dominant.

▶ Practice identification in the cadence trainer Switching to listen-and-answer mode hides the chord names. Start with the basic three and add the deceptive and Phrygian cadences once your accuracy is stable Cadence Trainer →

That completes identification of isolated events — intervals, chords, and cadences. From the next lesson the subject is transcription: reconstructing what you hear as a sequence of symbols.