The Two Cadences That Run Almost Every Pop Song

A cadence is just the way a musical phrase comes to rest. The word sounds grand, the thing itself is not. If a sentence is a phrase, a cadence is the full stop, or the comma, or the question mark at the end of it. Most of harmony, when you stop and look, is the question of which ending a phrase is going to use, and once you can hear that, a great deal of pop music opens up.

Two of those endings carry most of the weight. They have technical names, which I will use, but only because the names are handy labels. The names are not the thing. The thing is the feeling each one gives you, and you have been recognising both since you were small.

Ending one: the front door

The first cadence is called the perfect cadence, and it is the sound of arriving home. In the key of C major, it is G going to C. In Roman numerals (which we use so the idea travels to any key) it is V going to I. The fifth chord of the key resolves onto the first.

Have a listen. Play a G chord. Now play a C. Notice how completely the C feels like it has shut the door behind you. That is not a metaphor; it is a physical fact about how the ear hears those two chords next to each other. The G chord contains one note (the B) that wants very badly to step up to the C, and another (the F, if you include the seventh and make it a G7) that wants to step down to the E. The chord is, in a quiet way, leaning towards home before it gets there.

You know this sound. It is the end of "Happy Birthday." It is the last bar of nearly every hymn. It is the way most jokes land in pop music: the verse winding up, the chorus arriving, and a G to C underneath saying here we are, then.

Ending two: the unfinished sentence

The second cadence is called the deceptive cadence, and it is the same setup with a small, surprising substitution. You play the V chord, exactly as before, and the listener's ear arrives at home ahead of the music. But instead of the I, you play the vi. In C major, that is G going to A minor.

Have a listen. Play G. Now play A minor. Notice what your face does. It does a tiny version of the face you would do if someone, mid sentence, paused and... said something other than the word you were expecting. The phrase has not ended. The story is not over. The door is still open.

That is the whole trick. A minor shares two notes with C major (the C and the E), so it sounds related to home; it just isn't home. The ear has been led somewhere familiar but not the place it was promised. Reuben, my old teacher, used to call this a happy memory you are standing just outside of. I have never improved on the description.

How songs actually use them

Once you can hear these two endings, you start to notice the simple shape pop songs use, again and again. A verse will often end on the deceptive cadence (the door left open) so the next line has something to walk into. The chorus, when it lands, will resolve on the perfect cadence (the door shut) so the hook actually feels like a hook. The bridge, which has to feel both new and undecided, will sometimes use the deceptive cadence two or three times in a row, leaning on the unresolved feeling until the listener is genuinely keen to be back in the chorus.

I am not telling you anything writers have not always known by ear. I am only telling you the labels for what they were already doing. That is the whole point of theory, and it is worth saying again: theory describes; it does not dictate. The cadence was working before anyone named it.

Theory describes; it does not dictate. The cadence was working before anyone named it.

A small kitchen analogy

I bake sourdough at home, badly enough that the bread teaches me something most weeks. There is a moment in the recipe, near the end, called the final prove. You leave the shaped dough in a warm place and wait. If you take it out too early, it slumps; if you leave it too late, it collapses in the oven. The whole loaf is shaped, in a sense, by what you do at that one resting moment.

Cadences are the same. A phrase has its melody, its rhythm, its shape, all working away across the bar; and then everything depends on which chord you put under the final beat. Perfect cadence: the loaf is done. Deceptive cadence: give it another five minutes. A whole song often turns on which choice you make in those last two chords, and that is, in a quiet way, a remarkable amount of power for very little equipment.

Try it out

You're probably wondering how to hear the difference in your own playing, so here is the smallest possible experiment. Pick any key you are comfortable in. Find its V chord and its I chord. Play four bars of a simple progression that ends V to I. Then play the same four bars again, but swap the last chord for the vi. Sing a single held note over both versions and listen to what the same note feels like, depending on what is underneath.

If you would rather hear it without working out the chords yourself, the chord builder at Undercover Zest will sound out a V to I and a V to vi in any key you choose. Play them back to back, a few times, until your ear stops needing the labels. After that the names are scaffolding you can quietly take down.

Two doors, and what to do with them

That is most of what pop endings are doing: one door that shuts and one door left open. Use the perfect cadence when you want the listener to feel they have arrived. Use the deceptive cadence when you want them to lean forwards in their seat. A song that uses only the first feels reassuring and a little inert. A song that uses only the second never lets the listener rest. The well-behaved version does both, in roughly the proportions you'd expect.

And if you are stuck on a chorus that won't land, my honest first guess is that you are accidentally on the wrong cadence. Try the other one. You will recognise it the instant your hands find it.

...there.