source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 12:34:42 -0700 Subject: Re: 4:5:6:7 in Authentic Cadence From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Somebody asked: > I may be mistaken here, but I think that authentic cadences aren't > terribly common in barbershop style. > > Gary,what is an "authentic cadence" ? I started to answer that question with a series of dreadful textbookish definitions, but the answer would almost certainly clearer by example. In the key of C major, an authentic cadence is the chord progression from the chord GBDF to CEG. In C minor, it would be GBDF to CEbG. That is as opposed to a plagal cadence (for example) which in C major is FAC to CEG, or FAbC to CEbG in C minor. Or as opposed to (probably) the most common form of deceptive cadence: GBDF to ACE. Obviously you can transpose those progressions into whatever key you'd like. That progression (the authentic cadence) is extremely common in Western music as a whole, but I seem to recall - again, perhaps incorrectly - that virtually all chords in barbershop work are (dominant) seventh chords. In that case you would not technically have an authentic cadence, since the tonic chord would be a seventh chord. (That could be used as a fragment of a chain of secondary dominants, but perhaps I ought not get into that.) Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 7 Sep 1996 22:16 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA27263; Sat, 7 Sep 1996 22:17:50 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA27109 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id NAA27752; Sat, 7 Sep 1996 13:17:45 -0700 Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 13:17:45 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu