I could make this blog entry just about “musical cadence,” but I’ll start much more generally. In fact, I’m struggling with the meaning of cadence in my music a bit, so it’s always good to “start from the beginning.”

Originally (in Medieval Latin) “cadentia” meant “rhythm in verse,” which references another, different context than music. But “rhythm in…” can have lots of finishing words appropriate to the current usage of “cadence,” including “…of a bird’s song,” or “…of march steps,” or even “…of a blog series.” All sorts of forms of expression have associated rhythmic patterns. We reference those patterns as cadences when they’re formal, perhaps conscious. (I’ll leave you to decide whether the “cadence of a bird’s song” is conscious.) But the study of cadences implies purpose — its rhythm serves some structural or meaningful purpose in the context in which it occurs. That, of course, is easy to see in “cadence of march steps.” But even the “cadence of a blog series” conveys something in and of itself: my blog entries tend to focus on the rhythmic construction, completion, and celebration of a musical project. Calling that pattern “rhythmic” might be a stretch, but it matches the intent of the pattern as it’s currently defined in dictionaries.

In music, “cadence” usually references something harmonic as well as rhythmic. It serves the purpose of bringing a theme, section, or entire composition to a close. Lots of music theory is dedicated to analyzing cadence from the very narrow perspective of traditional Western European music of the 17th through 20th Centuries. If you’ve listened to my music here, you know that I’ve not followed that tradition, at least consciously — I’ve finished musical phrases through a combination of instrumental and rhythmic figures. Harmonically, I rarely leverage the sorts of things common to the Western cadences associated with the so-called “circle of 5ths” or major/minor key sequences. That’s not how I build my sounds. But do I need to understand such — at least recognize and leverage when those things are tangentially present in my musical phrasing?

That, of course, begs the larger question I’ve asked myself throughout my journey — should I incorporate and reflect traditional musical concepts consciously, or should I just let my ear lead me where it goes, regardless of where the things it uses and likes came from anything with a formal underpinning? In fact, I’ve kinda answered that question by doing — although I have been (early, then again more recently) a student of Western European music theory, and can push myself back into that context if needed, my writing has been by ear almost exclusively, driven by my natural tendency to avoid repetition and tradition, but also by a complete lack of piano performance ability where such things can be easily chased.

But the analysis of my music’s use of “cadence” can bring some interesting patterns, especially in my latest project. It is, in fact, a 5-measure cadential phrase at the end of my last “dance” which is the only thing standing in the way of that project’s completion! (I’m writing this to avoid that!)