Music Bites #2

All about the Cadence.

What is it? How does it work?
What is the purpose?

A cadence is an extension of a chord.
It is the next level of detail, where the most simple version is the chord and the cadence prepares the landing on the chord for impact.


Let's see this

In the KEY of C major ( A relative Minor

1. Is Cmaj7 CEGB

So the simple way to use this chord is just directly.
CEGB
But the next level of detail is to turn this into a cadence.

A cadence means you begin with a
Subdominant function ( some tension

Moving to a Dominant function ( full tension

Finally resolving to Tonic function ( relaxing at your destination

This is harmonic motion.
The music is travelling with a cadence.
You are preparing the music so that the tonic at the end is satisfying because you went on a adventure before succeeding at the end.
It's like conflict then resolution in a motion picture.

 

With a cadence you have 3 functions.
Subdominant
Dominant
Tonic

These are categories which group chords together such that you can select any specific chord or note from that whole category.

In the KEY of C major.
The cadence for Cmajor

Is

Dmin7 ii chord subdominant
G7 V chord dominant
C6 I chord tonic

You have 2 types of cadences major and minor

For the major cadence it is ii V I in the major key of I
Let's look at the relative minor A minor ( c major

Bmin7b5. ii% chord. Subdominant
E7. V chord dominant
Amin6. I chord tonic

For the minor cadence it is

ii%, V7 , imin6

In the minor key of imin6


Any type of chord fits into these 2 cadences .

So if you have let's say
C7. CEGBb

As your chord you are Bout to turn into a cadence instead of playing the chord directly ( next layer of detail)

You treat a dominant chord cadence as the major type.

Dmin7 DFAC subdominant
G7. GBDF dominant
C7. CEGA#. Tonic

This would be the cadence for C7 CEGBb

.let's say Cmin7b5 C Eb Gb Bb ( C D# F# A#)

Was a chord you want to turn into a cadence
Your follow the minor type

Dmin7b5. D F Ab C ( subdominant
G7. GBDF. Dominant
Cmin7b5. C D# F# A# ( C Eb Gb Bb tonic.

This means every chord type has a cadence and that cadence is either the major type or minor type of cadence.

 

Part B

A cadence is the extension of the chord in question.
Expanding any chord into a movement.

But you can trim down a cadence as well.

A normal cadence for C major

Dmin7 subdominant
G7 dominant
C6. Tonic

You can trim way the subdominant function of s cadence to be V7 to I

G7 GBDF
C6 CEGA ( more on 6th chords later)

Now this is refered to as a " secondary dominant"

But you can think of it as trimming down the cadence .

You see a cadence is the first building block of a larger peice of the puzzle " chord progressions"

Anytime you want to go from one chord to another you just create a cadence for the chord about the happen next ( or the trimmed down secondary dominant)
You can make it a ii V7 to I
Or you can make it a V7 to I.

Imagine I have this.

Dmin7 G7 C6.
But I want a Emaj7 chord to come in next .
How do you do it?

You can make a full cadence of
Subdominant dominant tonic
Or you can make the trimmed down secondary dominant
Dominant tonic.
Let's see both

(Dmin7 G7 C6 F#min7 B7 Emaj7

Dmin7 G7 C6 B7 Emaj7

You see we are preparing the impact of the Emaj7 chord about to happen with. A ii V7 I or V7 to I
Functionally so that the listener can hear the tonality shift from Cmaj as it's focus to E Maj at it's focus. This creates motion but it also makes it so the music makes sense to listener as well.

Another example
Dmin7 G7 Cmaj7
Now say we want F#min7b5 ( F#ACE
To happen next.
First we note to follow the minor cadence
Dmin7 G7 Cmaj7 G#min7b5 C#7 F#min7b5

Again we create structural motion while giving the listener a way to make sense of the tonality shifting
From one place to another.
If your pace of the music is slow generally preceed
With a cadence
If your pace of the music is fast generally preceed with a secondary dominant ( trim away the subdominant)

 

interesting knowledge my friend

 

When it comes to using this information.
Some like to go more " minimalist approach"
One way to do that is to break the 7th chords up into 2 triads
If we had a structure of
DFAC G7 CEGB
You can break up the 7th chords into

DFA, FAC. GBD BDF, CEG EGB

It's important to keep in mind the difference between the music language structure
And what gets actually played
They are two very different things.
A cadence of Dmin7 G7 C6
For example can be represented by
Thousands of different melodies and music layers
Chord comping etc.
There so many ways to use the way music works
When it comes to making sound in a moment of time for a song.

 

Part C
Substitutions ( regarding Cadence)

First off we will take our dominant
Portion of the cadence . As this has the most substitutions and options because it represents tension right before we move to the tonic for resolution.

The first substitution is called
The tritone substitution

How this works is to begin with your V7 chord.

In C major cadence
Dmin7 G7 C6

This will be the G7
GBDF G7
The tritone substitution means build a dominant 7th chord one tritone away from G note.
C# is the tritone.
C#7 ( C# F G# B )
Notice the 3rd and 7th F and B
Notice G7 GBDF
Also has its 3rd and 7th B and F
This is the power of the tritone substitution

When you use the tritone substitution chord
You attach the Lydian dominant scale to play over the chord.
C# Lydian dominant C# D# F G G# A# B
Now instead of
DMin7 G7 C6
With the tritone sub
We get
Dmin7 C#7 C6 ( DFAC C# FG#B CEGA

Notice this substitution gives us a chromatic descending bass motion.



The minor cadence tritone substitution

A minor cadence

Bmin7b5 E7 Amin6

Our V7 is E7. E G# B D
So we build a dominant 7th chord a tritone from E

A#7. A# D F G#
Notice the 3rd and 7th is D and G#
The 3rd and 7th of E7 is also G# and D
This is the power of the tritone sub.

We use A# Lydian dominant scale over this chord for the tritone substitution.
A# Lydian dominant A# C D E F G G#

Bmin7b5 A#7 Amin6

We can see the chromatic motion if the cadence when using the tritone sub.

Let's now show you a C major cadence with tritone sub combined with A minor cadence with tritone sub into a single progression.

Dmin7 C#7 C6 Bmin7b5 A#7 Amin6

Notice the chromatic descending bass note motion.

 

V7 Dominant chord substitution #2

The Altered Chord.

Take our V7 from Cmajor cadence

G7. GBDF..
........1357..

The easiest way to understand the G7 altered is
To build a Melodic minor scale off the flat 9th of the chord in question.
So for G7 that is G# melodic minor .
If we first look at A melodic minor we get this
A B C D E F# G#

1.ACEG#. Aminmajor7th ( aka Aminmaj
2.BDF#A. Bminor7
3.CEG#B. Cmaj7#5
4.DF#AC. D7
5.EG#BD. E7
6.F#ACE. F#min7b5
7.G#BDF#. G#min7b5


Now going back to G# melodic minor for the G7 altered chord we get.

G# A# B C# D# F G

Now we want to look at the G7 notes.

G B D F A C E
1 3 5 7 9 11 13

We can see alterations for the altered chord
G# is flat 9th
A# is sharp 9th
C# is flat 5
D# is sharp 5

So a Altered G7 chord is
GBD#FA#C#D#
You would use that instead of
GBDF in your cadence.
When using the altered dominant chord
You cannot use a natural 5th , use flat 5 or sharp 5 flat 9 or sharp 9 .
So for example

DFAC GBC#FA# CEGA

You see altering the V7 gives you more tension
Which pronounces the relaxation of the tonic even more and it more satisfying to the ear when you finally resolve to C major ( than less tense GBDF

 

V7 chord substitution #3

The whole tone scale.
If we take our V7 chord from our C major cadence
G7. GBDF

And we build a scale from the root which is entirely whole tones we get.
G A B C# D# F G
G is root
A is 9th
B is 3rd
C# is b5th
D# is #5th
F is 7th
G is root.




..........



V7 chord substitution # 4
The Half Whole Diminished scale




If we take our V7 chord from any cadence
In this case the G7 from C major cadence

G7 GBDF

And we build a half step whole step scale
We get this
G G# A# B C# D E F G

G is root
G# is b9th
A# is #9th
B is 3rd
C# is b5th
D is 5th
E is 13th
F is 7th
G is root

All you have to do is play these scales for the duration of the V7 chord in the cadence to bring out their unique flavors and traits.

 

V7 chord substitution #5

The Diminished 7th chord .

If we build a dim7 chord off the 7th degree of C major
( Dim7 is all minor 3rds stacked)

We get
B D F G#

It's a symmetrical chord which means what ever applies to one note also applied to the rest of them.

If we think of how this compares to A G7
GBDF we just turning the root into a b9th
G#BDF

So this means each note of the dim7 slides down half-step to create a dominant 7th chord.

G#BDF. GBDF G7
BDFG#. A#DFG# A#7
DFG#B. C#FG#B. C#7
FG#BD. EG#BD. E7

Will you look at that!
The V7 of Cmajor and it's tritone sub
The V7 of relative Aminor and it's tritone sub

.

 

Scale of chords.

If we now take our dim7
BDFG#
And combine the notes with C6 CEGA
We get 8 note scale
B C D E F G G# A

Where each note of the scale is an inversion of the tonic (in form of C6 CEGA
And the form of the dominant ( in form of dim7 BDFG#

CEGA.
DFG#B
EGAC
FG#BD
GACE
G#BDF
ACEG
BDFG#

What we have is a trimmed down cadence ( V7 to I)
Such that we can attach harmony to melody to express the dominant resolving to Tonic.

 

You see we use the C6 chord CEGA
To represent the major tonic because if we instead used the Cmajor7 CEGB the B is borrowed from the dominant chord that fits with Cmajor , the G7 GBDF
B is the 3rd a strong note in G7.

However there is another reason.
C6 is identical to Aminor7
CEGA equals ACEG ( more on this later

If we modify our scale of chords slightly
C6 CEGA modified to be C7 CEGA#
Watch what happens.

Scale of chords

CEGA#
DFG#B
EGA#C
FG#BD
GA#CE
G#BDF
A#CEG

We actually get a secondary dominant
C7 dominant and it's V7 chord which fits with it.

 

If we make another modification from the original C6 CEGA to make it into CEF#A we get Amin6 chord
ACEF# Amin6

Now again turn it into scale of chords.
ACEF#
BDFG#
CEF#A
DFG#B
EF#AC
FG#BD
F#ACE
G#BDF

We get the secondary dominant for a Min6 chord
The V7 which fits with it.

But as before like with the C6 being a Amin7
The Amin6 chord is also a F#min7b5 chord.

So now we scales of chords for these types.
Major
Minor
Dominant
Min6
Minor7b5

We have a way to create a trimmed down cadence for these chords such that we can create melodies which travel along the chord tones following the tension ( V7 to release ( tonic

 

Let's say we are thinking in the key if C major.
We want to create a full Cadence

Dmin7 G7. Cmajor

How can we create a scale of chords for the
Subdominant, the dominant, and the tonic?


Well the Dmin7 is same as F6 chord
C#EGA#
DFAC
EGA#C#
FACD
GA#C#E
ACDF
A#C#EG
CDFA
C#EGA#

Next for the G7 we have

F#ACD#
GBDF
ACD#F#
BDFG
CD#F#A
DFGB
D#F#AC
FGBD
F#ACD#
GBDF

And finally the tonic
CEGA
DFG#B
EGAC
FG#BD
GACE
G#BDF
ACEG
BDFG#
CEGA

We now have the V7 chord of each of the three chords available for tension and release outlining Melody and or harmony at our disposal at our free will .

 

Next let's say we are creating a full cadence in Amin ( relative Cmajor)

Bmin7b5 E7 Amin6

We seen before that our min6 scale of chords is same as min7b5

So Bmin7b5 BDFA is also Dmin6 DFAB

This means
A#C#EG
BDFA
C#EGA#
DFAB
EGA#C#
FABD
GA#C#E
ABDF
A#C#EG

This gives us the V7 for Bminor7b5 (secondary dominant)

Next the scale of chords for E7

D#F#AC
EG#BD
F#ACD#
G#BDE
ACD#F#
BDEG#
CD#F#A
DEG#B
D#F#AC

This gives us the secondary dominant which belongs to E7

Finally
Amin6 tonic scale of chords

ACEF#
BDFG#
CEF#A
DFG#B
EF#AC
FG#BD
F#ACE
G#BDF
ACEG#

We now have the full Amin cadence with a scale of chords for the subdominant dominant and tonic

Bmin7b5 to E7 to Amin6.

 

Here is an easy way to get down the scale of chords , for each type of chord there is.

Begin with the C6 CEGA
CEGA
DFG#B
EGAC
FG#BD
GACE
G#BDF
ACEG
BDFG#
CEGA

Now by we simply modify our C6 chord each time

C6 CEGA
C7 CEGA#
AMin6 CEF#A
Amin7 ACEG

But our dim7 always stays the same BDFG#

Because
C6 CEGA equals Aminor7 ACEG
Amin6 ACEF# equals F#min7b5 F#ACE
C7 CEGA#

They all use BDFG# dim7

This is quickest way to learn the scale of chords for each type of chord there is.

You can even build a scale of chords for Bdim7

BDFG#
C#EGA#
DFG#B
EGA#C#
FG#BD
GA#C#E
G#BDF
A#C#EG
BDFG#

 

Please feel free to comment and ask me about anything thank you for your time my friends.

 

Why C6 chord specifically? Because of what your next post said about How B is would mean the dominant and tonic share a note?

 

Why modify it to A# specifically?

 

Hello friend ,
Thanks that is a fantastic question.

When we start out we are using C6 CEGA ( tonic)

Now, when we slightly modify it to A#
That gives us a different type of chord .
A dominant chord C7 CEGA#
A dominant chord is tense
A tonic chord is relaxed.
We need both at different times
So if our brain can see all the things which are the same as well as the one tiny difference .
The brain can easily understand
CEGA
DFG#B
EGAC
FG#BD
GACE
G#BDF
ACEG

Compared to this.
CEGA#
DFG#B
EGA#C
FG#BD
GA#CE
G#BDF
A#CEG
BDFG#
CEGA#

The only change needed to see the structure being applied to a whole other different type of chord and scale of chords is changing that A to A#

So
Cmaj
Is tonic
Dmin7,G7 ,C6

But C7 is dominant which resolves to Fmaj key

Gmin7, C7,Fmaj

Here is note of c major
CDEFGAB
Here is notes of Fmajor
FGAA#CE ( CDEFGAA#
A#= Bb Bflat

 

Hello friend , that's a great question.

If we take C major
CDEFGAB
Next create chord for each degree.
CEGB
DFAC
EGBD
FACE
GBDF
ACEG
BDFA

We can see it's a Cmajor7 CEGB

However when we create a scale of chords
What we want to accomplish is taking the form.
V to I and repeat it through inversions.

Now
The C6 is CEGA
We use the A because the dim7 we pair C6 with
G#BDF contains the tritone the BandF resolve to CandE
To go from tense to relaxed.
Second .
If we look at C6 CEGA notes combined with bdim7 BDFG# notes we get
CDEFGG#ABC
It gives us even number if notes along with a chord for each note.
CEGA
DFG#B
EGAC
FG#BD
GACE
G#BDF
ACEG
BDFG#

I to V to I to V to I etc.

Tension to release.