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What Is a Cadence?

What Is a Cadence?

A cadence is the chord motion that closes a musical phrase — harmony's punctuation. Some cadences are full stops, some are commas, one is a plot twist. If a progression is a sentence, the cadence is how it ends, and it's most of what makes music feel like it breathes.

The four classics

  • Authentic (V–I): the full stop. Dominant resolves to tonic, the leading tone rises home — the strongest close in music.
  • Plagal (IV–I): the "Amen" from hymn endings. Subdominant settles to tonic; soft and warm.
  • Half cadence (…–V): the comma. The phrase pauses on the V, unresolved, telling the listener "more coming."
  • Deceptive (V–vi): the plot twist. Everything promises I; the vi arrives instead. Songwriters use it to extend a phrase past its expected ending.

Why guitarists should care

Cadences explain the "rules" you already follow by feel: why a chorus ends on the 1-chord, why stopping on the V makes a verse feel suspended, why 12-bar blues puts the V in bar 9 to launch the turnaround. Once you can name them, you can choose them — and hear them coming in songs you're learning by ear, because a V chord telegraphs its resolution.

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