Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's lesson entitled Chords and Cadences.

My name is Mr. Norris.

I'm gonna take you through today as we have a look at identifying different types of chords and cadences in different musical contexts.

Our outcome is that I can identify different chord types by ear and through notation, and can identify different cadences.

Some key words.

First is tonic.

This is chord one in a key.

Dominant, which is chord five in a Key, and subdominant, which is chord four in a key.

A perfect cadence, which is a five-one progression at the end of a section of music, it feels resolved.

And then imperfect cadence, which is when a section ends on chord five, feeling unfinished.

First part of today's lesson is looking at identifying triads and extended chords.

Chords are the foundation of harmony, which is a key aspect of Western music.

The harmony of a piece of music has a huge impact on its mood, its character.

So composers choose different types of chords to achieve their specific musical aims. Can you think of any different chord types? Pause my video while you have a think or a discussion.

So you might have thought of a triad chord, and this is the most common type of chord in Western music.

It's got three notes, that's the tri part of triad, and they're spaced a third apart.

This is an example of a C major triad.

So we see those three notes there and they're all spaced a third apart.

This is what it would sound like, (gentle piano music) and that's the most basic fundamental type of chord that we get.

We can have major or minor versions of triads.

So it's the middle note of a triad that determines whether it's major or minor.

This is a C major triad because it has an E in the middle of it.

But if we change that middle note to an E flat, we get a C minor triad and that creates a very different mood to the C major triad.

Let's see the C minor one, (gentle piano music) and compare that to the C major one.

(gentle piano music) So that single note in the middle of the chord totally changes the mood and character.

And the way you identify if it's a major or minor triad is that in a minor triad the middle note is a minor third above the root note, or three semitones above the root note.

In a major triad it's a major third above the root note or four semitones.

Have a listen to these four chords.

I'd like you to identify the two that are minor.

Here's the first one.

(gentle piano music) Here's the second one.

(gentle piano music) The third one.

(gentle piano music) And the fourth one.

(gentle piano music) So well done there if you identified that.

It was the second and third chords that were minor.

The easiest way to identify that by ear is just listening to the sort of color and mood that the chord creates.

This was the first minor chord (gentle piano music crescendos) and this was the second one.

(gentle piano music) Both of them have that distinct minor third in the middle of them.

Which note of a triad determines whether it's major or minor? Is it the bottom note, the middle note, or the top note? I'll give you a few seconds to choose an answer.

And the correct answer here is it's the middle note that determines whether it's major or minor.

A triad with extra notes is called an extended chord.

These sound more complex and colorful and they can be built from either major or minor triads with extra notes added on top.

A seventh chord is a really common example, and in certain types of music you get seventh chords all over the place.

In the seventh chord, the seventh note of the scale is added on top of the triad.

So we can see there we've got a G major chord, those bottom three notes, and then there's a seventh note added on top to create a G seven chord.

Let's have listen to what that sounds like.

(gentle piano music) I don't know if you can hear, that sounds a little bit more complex and colorful than just the bog standard G chord.

If we add the sixth note of the scale, we get the sixth chord.

So this example is a G six chord.

We've got the three notes of a G triad, G, B, and D, and then we've got that E added on top as well.

(gentle piano music) That creates that nice interesting little bit of dissonance in the chord, adding a bit of color and complexity to the harmony.

To identify extended chords by ear, we need to consider if they sound simple, so like a triad, or if they're more colorful or jazzy, you might say, which would be an extended chord.

Let's have a listen to these examples.

Which one of these is an extended chord? Here's the first one.

(gentle piano music crescendos) And the second one.

(gentle piano music) And there it was the first example that was an extended chord and that example had a seventh added to the chord.

Let's check your understanding.

Which two of these are extended chords? Here's option A.

(gentle piano music crescendos) Option B.

(gentle piano music) Option C.

(gentle organ music) And option D.

(gentle piano music) So take a few seconds, make sure you've chosen two answers.

And the correct answers were option A and C.

This was A, (gentle piano music crescendos) and this was C.

(gentle organ music crescendos) So now we had a seventh and a sixth chord.

Let's try the same again with these different chords.

Which two are extended? Here's the first one.

(gentle piano music) Option B.

(gentle piano music crescendos) Option C.

(gentle piano music) And finally option D.

(gentle organ music crescendos) And the two correct answers then were options A and B.

This was A, (gentle piano music) that's the seventh chord, and then this was B.

(gentle piano music) And that was a chord with a few different notes added on top.

So with task A, listen to each chord, identify if it is major or minor and if it's an extended chord or not.

Let's listen first of all, to example one.

I'm gonna give you each one three times.

Here's example one.

(gentle piano music) For the second time.

(gentle piano music) And for the third time.

(gentle piano music) And choosing your answer for example one.

And now example two.

(gentle piano music) For the second time, (gentle piano music) and for the third time.

(gentle piano music) And just finishing your answer of question two.

And now time for question three.

Here it is.

(gentle piano music) Now for the second time, (gentle piano music) now the third and final time, question three.

(gentle piano music) And just finishing your answer to question three.

And finally then question four.

For the first time, (gentle piano music) for the second time.

(gentle piano music) And now third and final time.

(gentle piano music) And just finishing up your answer of question four.

And let's review this task then.

So example one was major and it was an extended version of a major chord.

Question two was minor and it was not extended.

Question three was minor and it was extended.

And then question four was major and was not an extended chord.

It's just a triad chord.

So really well done if you got some of those correct.

Hopefully you're starting to develop your confidence identifying different types of chords.

The second part of today's lesson is focused on identifying chords one, four, and five.

The primary chords are the most useful chords in tonal music.

These are chords one, four, and five.

These chords help to ground the music in the key, so they're the basis of most chord sequences.

This common blues chord sequence, which is called the 12-bar blues, uses entirely primary chords.

So it's just based on chord one, four, and five.

Let's have a listen to it and see if you can pick out the changes between chord one, four, and five.

(bright piano music) (bright piano music continues) Chord one in the key is called the tonic chord.

So in the key of C major, A C major triad would be the tonic chord.

Now the tonic chord makes the music feel grounded and complete, sort of like the home chord.

So let's have a listen to these examples.

Which of these phrases feels more finished? Here's the first one.

(bright piano music) And here's the second one.

(bright piano music) So let me quite think about which one feels more finished.

And here, the first example finishes on the tonic chord, which makes it sound more finished, grounded in the key.

Chord five is called the dominant chord.

So we've got, the tonic is one and the dominant is five.

Now the dominant chord feels unfinished and incomplete if it finishes a chord sequence.

See what I mean by listening to the ending of this example here and how it feels quite unfinished.

(bright piano music) Chord four is called the subdominant chord.

And the way you remember the name of that is that sub means underneath, like a submarine, under the water.

So subdominant means just under the dominant, just under the chord five.

This also feels unfinished if it finishes a chord sequence.

Have a listen to this example that finishes in chord four.

You'll notice it sounds a bit different at the end, but it still doesn't feel complete and resolved.

(bright piano music) Let's check your understanding.

Which chord sounds like the music is resolved? Is it tonic, subdominant, or dominant? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer is, it's the tonic.

That's the home chord and that makes it feel resolved and finished.

While the primary chords are the most common, secondary chords are also important.

These are the other triads, two, three, six, and seven.

And seven, you'll see has that little circle next it, that's 'cause in a major key chord seven is the diminished chord.

So it's rarely used in typical chord sequences.

It sounds quite unusual.

This chord sequence uses mostly primary chords with some secondary chords as well.

See if you can pick out chord any of the secondary chords.

(bright piano music) Now identifying specific chords by ear takes practice.

The key is to identify the bottom note, that's the root note of the chord and to work out which note that is in the key.

So I've got a C major triad there.

The root note is gonna be that C.

To work out the final chord in the sequence, first identify if it's the tonic chord.

So does it feel finished and resolved? Let's have a listen in this example, does it feel finished and resolved? (bright piano music) Now in that case it feels unfinished, it doesn't feel resolved and settled at the end.

So we know that the last chord is not the tonic because if it was, it would feel finished and complete.

To identify if it's the subdominant, that's chord four, or the dominant, chord five, we listen for the bass notes and compare them to the tonic.

So we're gonna be picking out the bass notes, the lowest notes, and try to compare them to the tonic note.

Try to sing the bass note of this tonic chord.

(bright piano music) It should sound like this.

(deep piano music) So that note is laaa.

That's our bass note of the tonic chord.

Now we compare it to the bass note, the final chord.

So see if you can sing the bass note of this chord.

(bright piano music) That should sound like this.

(deep piano music) That's our bass note.

So now we've got the two notes and together they would sound like this.

(bright piano music) So with these two different notes we've identified, bottom note of each chord.

Now all we need to do is work out the interval between those notes, by singing the two notes with the notes in between.

Or if we know reference songs, we can work out the intervals that way as well.

If it's a fourth, then the chord is fourth, and if the interval's a fifth then the chord is gonna be chord five.

So we compare it by singing both those notes.

See if you can work out the interval, Laa, laaa.

Pause my video and see if you can work this one out.

So this one was a fifth, and if you're using the reference songs, it's the start of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." So this means the last chord was five, chord five, the dominant chord.

So let's just recap that process for identifying the different chords.

First, identify if the chord sounds like the music could finish on it, if it feels home and resolved.

This tells us if it's the tonic chord, chord one.

And if it feels complete then you know it's gonna be chord one, if it's not that, sing the tonic note of the key and then pick out the bass note of the unknown chord and sing that as well.

So you're getting those two notes isolated.

Then compare the two notes to work out the interval between them.

If the intervals are fifth, then the chord is gonna be chord five, if the intervals are fourth, the chord gonna be chord four.

Let's check your understanding.

If there's an interval of a fifth between the tonic and the bass note of the chord, what is that chord? Is it one, four, or five? And the correct answer here is chord five.

If you've got a fifth between the tonic and the mystery chord, that mystery chord is chord five.

For this task you're gonna listen to each chord sequence.

I'd like you to identify whether the last chord is chord one, that's the tonic, chord four, the subdominant, or chord five, the dominant.

Remember, follow the steps.

So first of all, identify if it feels resolved and complete.

If it does, it's almost certainly the tonic.

If it doesn't, sing the bass note of the tonic chord and the bass note of the mystery chord, work at the interval between them to identify if it's chord four or five.

Here's the first example.

(bright piano music) I will play you that one more time.

(bright piano music) Pause my video if you need to while you finish this one.

Here's question two.

(bright piano music) Let's hear that one for the second time.

(bright piano music) You can pause my video if you need to while you're finishing that one.

Now question three.

(bright piano music) Now for the second time.

(bright piano music) Pause my video while you finish that one.

And now question four.

(bright piano music) For the second time.

(bright piano music) You can pause my video while you finish question four.

And finally question five, for the first time.

(bright piano music) And now lt's hear it a second time.

(bright piano music) Now pause my video while you finished that one off.

Okay, let's review this task.

So the first one finished on the tonic, it felt resolved and complete.

The second one didn't, and it was chord four that it finished on the subdominant.

Question three ended on the dominant, question four, tonic, and question five, the dominant.

So well done if you got those correct.

And even if you didn't, if you managed to identify whether it felt resolved and complete or not, that's a good first step.

This just takes practice to get very proficient at it.

Okay, so the final part of today's lesson is looking at identifying cadences.

A cadence is a pattern of two chords at the end of a section or passage of music, there are four main cadences which all have a different musical effect.

How would you describe the feeling created by the cadences at the end of each clip here? So thinking about what kind of mood the harmony creates at the end.

Here's the first one.

(bright piano music) So just thinking about the feeling at the end of that, and now let's hear the second clip.

(bright piano music) So thinking about how the feeling at the end of that one is slightly different.

And let's talk through these.

So the first was a perfect cadence.

That's where we have chord five and then chord one at the end of a section.

And that's the example that you can see written at the side.

It sounds resolved and as if the music could finish there because it finishes on the tonic chord, on the home chord.

And it's a really common cadence.

A perfect cadence can be identified by listening for two things, that resolved feeling of completeness and feeling finished, and the bass note moving from five to one.

So descending by the interval of a fifth.

Now it's time to listen for both of those in this clip.

Can you sing the last two notes of the bass line? (bright piano music) Let's check your understanding.

A perfect cadence sounds what? I'll give you a few seconds to come up with an answer.

The good answer here is it sound resolved, or you might have said complete, or finished.

Now an imperfect cadence finishes on chord five, so it feels unfinished and like more chords need to follow to make it feel resolved.

We can see an example there, where we're going from chord one, which is the C chord to chord five, the G chord.

Which of these is a perfect cadence, where it feels resolved and which is an imperfect cadence, where it feels not resolved, incomplete? And again, think about if it sounds finished or unfinished.

That's the real key to identifying these two types of cadence.

Here's the first example, perfect or imperfect.

(bright piano music) And now the second one, is this perfect or imperfect? (bright piano music) Well done if you identified, the first one was imperfect, it felt unfinished.

The second one was perfect, it felt finished and complete.

Let's check your understanding.

Which chord does an imperfect cadence end on, one, three, five, or six? I'll give you a few seconds.

And the correct answer is chord five.

An imperfect cadence finishes on five.

Perfect and imperfect cadences are by far the most common in Western classical music.

But there are two other important cadences that we got to look at.

Now the interrupted cadence sounds like we are gonna hear a perfect cadence.

So we're expecting it to finish on chord one, but at the last minute the composer interrupts the cadence by ending on a different unexpected chord.

And usually in a major key this would be a minor chord.

So a common example is what we see here, which is when the key C major, we've got chord five, that's our G chord, and then ending on A minor that's chord six.

Have a listen to this interrupted cadence and describe the feeling that it creates, that harmonic change at the end.

What sort of mood or feeling does that create? (bright piano music) So we describe that sounding unexpected and feeling unresolved because it doesn't finish on chord one.

Now the plagal cadence is the fourth cadence that we're gonna look at.

And this uses the progression four-one, it's often used at the end of hymns, this is where you often hear it, and sung to the words "Amen." It sounds similar to a perfect cadence because they both sound finished because they finish on chord one.

And there we can see some notation of a plagal cadence where in the key of C, we've got an F chord, which is chord four, and then a C chord, which is chord one.

We've got a perfect and a plagal cadence here, we're gonna listen to them.

How can you tell the difference between them by ear? Here's the perfect cadence.

(bright piano music) And here's the plagal cadence.

(bright piano music) So how can you tell the difference between those two? Just have a think for a few seconds.

Now telling the difference between these two can be quite tricky because they both end on chord one and feel resolved.

But the plagal cadence sounds different because it uses chord four before chord one, instead of chord five.

And it's identifying that chord that is the key.

To spot the difference, listen to the two bass notes.

For a plagal cadence, the interval's gonna go from the fourth to the tonic.

So it's gonna be a descending fourth.

For a perfect cadence, it's gonna go from five to one.

So a descending fifth.

Which of these is plagal, going from four to one, and which is perfect, going from five to one? Listen for the bass notes, sing them back to yourselves and try and identify the interval.

Here's the first example.

(bright piano music) And here's the second one.

(bright piano music) So pause my video while you tried to work out which is plagal and which is perfect.

And here, the first one was plagal, second one was perfect.

Identifying the chord and the bass note that comes before chord one is the key here.

So the first one had a chord four and the second one had chord five.

Brilliant, I think, if you managed to do that.

It's quite tricky and takes a lot of practice to be able to do that well.

Let's check your understanding.

Which cadence ends on an unexpected chord? Is it perfect, imperfect, interrupted, or plagal? I'll give you a few seconds.

And if you got it, the answer is, it's an interrupted cadence that ends on an unexpected chord.

Which cadence uses chords five and then one? Is it perfect, imperfect, interrupted, or plagal? I'll give you a few seconds to do this one.

And the correct answer here is it's a perfect cadence that goes five-one.

Listen to this cadence.

What is it? Here we go.

(bright piano music) I'll play it one more time.

(bright piano music) And if you need to, pause my video while you finish working this one out.

The correct answer here was an imperfect cadence.

It finished on chord five.

Well done if you managed to get that.

True or false, plagal and perfect cadences sound the same.

Give you a few seconds to choose your answer.

And the correct answer is false.

Why is that false? Justify it please.

Take a few seconds to come up with an answer.

And here we might say the cadences sound similar but not identical.

Picking out the bass note is the key.

If you can hear that note, you can work out how it relates to the tonic.

So then you can work out which chord and cadence you're listening to.

So in summary, there are four types of cadence.

Perfect.

It uses chords five and one and it feels resolved.

That's the defining feature of that one.

Imperfect cadence.

It ends on chord five, so it feels unfinished.

An interrupted cadence, which ends on a different chord.

It sounds unexpected and surprising.

And finally, a plagal cadence, which is chord four and then one.

It feels resolved like a perfect cadence, but uses chord four instead of five that you get in a perfect cadence.

So it's identifying which chord comes before chord one, is key to identifying the difference between a plagal and a perfect cadence.

For task C.

Identify which cadence is heard at the end of each clip.

Choose from perfect, imperfect, interrupted, and plagal.

Here is our first clip.

(bright piano music) I will show you again.

(bright piano music) And for the third time.

(bright piano music) So you can pause my video while you finish working that one out.

Now question two.

(bright piano music) Let's hear that one again.

(bright piano music) And third and final time, question two.

(bright piano music) You can pause my video while you finish that answer.

Now question three, for the first time.

(bright piano music) Now for the second time.

(bright piano music) And fnally for the third time.

(bright piano music) And just pause my video while you finish your answer.

And now time for question four.

Here it is for the first time.

(upbeat piano music) Question four for the second time.

(upbeat piano music) And third and final time.

(upbeat piano music) Just pause my video while you finish question four.

Finally question five.

Here it is for the first time.

(bright piano music) Now for the second time.

(bright piano music) Now third and final time, question five.

(bright piano music) And you can pause my video while you finish your answer for this one.

Okay, let's go through this.

So question one was a perfect cadence, that was this.

(bright piano music) It's got that resolved feeling and chord five-one at the end.

Question two was interrupted.

(bright piano music) So it goes from chord five to a different chord at the end, which has that sort of surprising unexpected feeling.

Question three was imperfect.

(bright piano music) It ends on chord five and feels unfinished.

Question four was perfect.

(upbeat piano music) There we can hear it finishes on the chord one, feels resolved, and the chord before chord one is chord five.

That makes it perfect.

And finally, question five was plagal.

That was this one.

(bright piano music) That's probably the toughest one to identify 'cause you've got to be able to pick out that chord four before chord one.

If you mistook that for a perfect cadence, it's a very easy mistake to make.

And the key there is you're still identifying that it feels finished and resolved.

It just takes a lot more practice getting your ear in to get used to identifying the difference between perfect and plagal cadences.

And eventually, once you've practiced it a lot, it becomes almost automatic.

Let's summarize today's lesson.

Major triads, minor triads, and extended chords can be identified by listening carefully to the feeling of each chord.

The tonic chord, which is chord one, can be identified by the finished feeling that it creates.

It feels like we're home.

The dominant chord, chord five and the subdominant chord, chord four, can be identified by listening for the bass notes.

So trying to pick out the bass note and then identifying the chord from that.

Cadences can be identified by the feeling they create.

Perfect and plagal feel finished, and imperfect and interrupted don't.

Listening for the bass notes helps to distinguish between perfect cadences, which are five-one, and plagal cadences, which are four-one.

And as we've said, that's quite tricky to do, but if you really hone in on those bass notes, it makes it possible.

So that's the end of today's lesson.

Thank you very much for taking part.

We've covered a lot, quite complex things there, but hopefully you feel like you've got a good understanding of these harmonic ideas, these harmonic principles, and now when you're analyzing music, you can be using this terminology and trying to pick out what you can hear with a bit more precision and technical accuracy.

Thanks for taking part in today's lesson and I'll see you in another one.