Cadences — Where the Feeling of Stopping Comes From
A cadence is not stopping on the tonic; it is two notes arriving together
The feeling of "a sentence has finished" is quite specific, yet you may never have asked how it is made. The answer is not "stopping on the tonic" — it is having two notes arrive at the same instant.
Three ways of stopping
One: perfect cadence (V → I) — the most "complete".
Two: half cadence (anything → V) — not a stop, but a held breath.
Three: plagal cadence (IV → I) — a softer kind of ending.
The key: two notes arrive together
This is the sentence worth keeping.
A perfect cadence feels "complete" not because it stops on the tonic, but because:
- the bass (dominant → tonic) and
- the melody (usually the tonic or the third)
arrive at the same moment.
The bass supplies "how far we travelled" (dominant → tonic is the strongest direction); the melody supplies "where we landed" (the tonic). The moment those two align is the moment a sentence ends.
So if you offset the bass and the melody slightly, that sense of completion weakens. This is also why the same chord collection can feel more or less final depending on its voicing.
The emotional difference between the three
| Cadence | Feeling | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect (V–I) | complete, finished | end of a section, a formal close |
| Half (→ V) | suspense, unfinished | middle of a section, a transition |
| Plagal (IV–I) | gentle, settled | prayer-like closes, quiet endings |
One practical tip: if you are writing an ending, use a perfect cadence first — it is the hardest to get wrong. Save half cadences for places that are supposed to continue.
An experiment you can run yourself
Change the beat of progression one from 1.3 to something smaller (say 0.7) and listen again.
The two chords will crowd together and the sense of completion becomes more "hurried" — which is why slowing a cadence makes it feel solemn, and rushing it feels careless.
Here rhythm is not about speed; it is about how much the pause is valued.
An honest note
Only the three commonest are shown. Real cadences also include:
- variants of the half cadence (stopping on ii or vi, the "pseudo-half");
- Phrygian cadence (a rising whole-tone approach, which sounds very bright);
- Locrian cadence (a descending-to-tonic ending that sounds modern).
But the test is always the same: where does the bass go, where does the melody go, and do they arrive together.
Next
- The three basic progressions: the three commonest progressions
- The note that keeps music hanging: suspensions
- Why the dominant seventh wants to resolve: seventh chords
- The psychology of expectation and resolution: how music triggers emotion
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 本页为终止式听辨练习的说明；终止式类型依据通用功能和声记法
- 实例均标注来源与许可档位，可在线试听；练习用的合成音由浏览器实时生成，非录音
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.