How an Open Cadence Builds Song Energy

Posted on July 26, 2010 by garyewer

Written by Gary Ewer, Senior Instructor, Dalhousie University, from “The Essential
Secrets of Songwriting” website.

There’s so much you can learn from the hit song “Need You Now.” I analyzed this song in a previous
post, mentioning the use of motif, plateau pitches, vocal harmonies, etc. There’s another aspect of
how the harmonies work in this tune that you can use in your own songs: the use of the so-
called open cadence. A cadence is a particular set of chord progressions that end a musical phrase.
Some of these progressions are used so frequently that we treat them as formulas: the authentic
cadence (ex: V-I), half cadence (ex: I-V), plagal cadence (ex: IV-I), and so on. Any cadence that ends
on the I-chord is considered a closed cadence. The one I want to address in this post is the open
cadence, which in traditional harmony is one that ends on a V-chord.

The half cadence example above, I-V, is a type of half cadence. The musical phrase ends on a V-chord,
and the assumption is that the next phrase will begin easily on the I-chord. But in pop theory, you
can think of an open cadence as any cadence that ends on something that’s not the I-chord.

The nice thing about ending a phrase on the V-chord is that it practically begs for the music to
continue. It needs more, because our ears are “trained” to expect something to follow V-chords,
usually the I-chord.

So open cadences that occur at the end of verses are great for building song energy, because any
time we hear a chord that demands that something follow it, we create a kind of musical urgency.
That urgency is translated into song energy.

In “Need You Now”, V-chords are in short supply. They just wouldn’t suit the song. V-chords make
song harmonies very predictable, and as we know, the harmonies and chord choices in “Need You
Now” are more subtle. V-chords are a bit too obvious to work well.

But they still manage to achieve the effect of the open cadence. The actual definition of the half
cadence in traditional harmony is “any chord moving to, and pausing on, the V-chord”. If you replace
the V-chord with something like a IV-chord, you’ve still got the open cadence effect. In “Need You
Now,” the cadence is actually vi-IV (C#m A).

The fact that the verse ends on a IV-chord gives it the same sense of urgency that usually comes from
placing a V-chord at the end of a verse: the listener can tell that the music hasn’t settled, and that
more is needed to resolve the harmonies.

Here are some verse chord progressions you can try that feature open cadences at the end. Hold
each chord for 4 beats, then experiment:

1) C F Dm G Am F Dm G

2) C C/Bb Am F Dm C/E F G ||

3) Fmaj7 Em7 Fmaj7 Em7 Am Dm9 Em7 F

4) C Eb F C Bb Eb Bb F