---
title: "Cadences in Music: The Four Types Explained · Piakno"
description: "A cadence is the pair of chords ending a phrase, and it decides whether the phrase sounds finished or not. The two common ones are the authentic cadence, V–I, a full stop, and the half cadence, ending on V."
url: "https://piakno.com/theory/cadences"
lang: "en"
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---

# Cadences

> A cadence is the pair of chords ending a phrase, and it decides whether the phrase sounds finished or not. The two common ones are the authentic cadence, V–I, a full stop, and the half cadence, ending on V.

Music comes in sentences, the way speech does, and the end of a sentence needs punctuation: a period, a comma, or an unexpected turn. Cadences are that punctuation — two chords whose motion tells the listener whether this sentence is over.

*A G major triad (G–B–D), the dominant of C major. It hangs, and wants to move back.*

*A C major triad (C–E–G), the tonic. Dominant moving to tonic is the period.*

| Name | Motion | Sounds like |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Authentic | V → I | a period: fully closed |
| Plagal | IV → I | the "amen": a gentle landing |
| Half | anything → V | a comma: not done talking |
| Deceptive | V → vi | about to close, and then not |

Identifying a cadence takes two questions: which chord the phrase lands on, and which one came before it. Landing on I is finished; landing on V is not. The first three cover almost everything in beginner repertoire, and the deceptive cadence is rare but unmistakable — it is the one that sounds like the ending it did not take.

> A cadence is about where the phrase ends, not about where you stop playing. A single piece may have five or six of them, and finding them tells you where to breathe and where to ease off slightly. It is also why memorizing gets easier: you are remembering four sentences instead of sixty notes.

## Common questions

### What is a cadence in music?

A short chord progression, usually two chords, that closes a phrase or a section. It works like punctuation, telling the listener whether the music has stopped for good or only paused.

### What are the four main cadences?

Authentic (V–I), plagal (IV–I), half (anything to V) and deceptive (V–vi). The first closes completely, the plagal is a soft "amen", the half cadence leaves the phrase open, and the deceptive one swerves away from the expected tonic.

### What type of cadence is V to I?

The authentic cadence, the strongest ending there is. In C major it is G to C, a dominant chord (often G7) resolving to the tonic.

## The course works through this in:

- [Lesson 61 · Cadences: how a musical sentence ends](https://piakno.com/course/piano-foundations/lesson/61)

## Related entries

- [Major and minor triads](https://piakno.com/theory/major-and-minor-triads)
- [The dominant seventh chord](https://piakno.com/theory/dominant-seventh)
- [The circle of fifths](https://piakno.com/theory/circle-of-fifths)

- [Theory reference](https://piakno.com/theory)