Hello teachers out there,

Would any experienced piano teachers advise on how I can teach cadence identification effectively? ( Grade 8 Aural Part A)
Many thanks, itsgoobie

I'm not a teacher, but a pupil who recently did Grade 8, and from my perspective the thing that made the difference was hearing lots and lots of cadences, over and over, in different keys and circumstances. I even recorded some, so I could listen to them until they became automatic. My teacher stopped any piece of music every time a cadence occurred, and made me identify it, playing over if necessary until I got it. I found this really helpful (and in the end got 16/18 for my aural )

I suppose you could try my approach - I liken the cadences to punctuation. So a perfect cadence sounds really final, like a full stop. (And some composers get really carried away at the end of their symphonies and do V-I-V-I-V-I-V-I-V-I-................!!!) The next easiest one is the interrupted one V-VI as it really sounds like a wrench from the major chord V to the minor chord VI - a bit like the question mark - the way someone's voice goes up at the end when asking a question. The imperfect I-V or II-V or IV-V sounds like a comma - there's more to come but it's not such a wrench as the interrupted. Plagal IV-I I think is the hardest one as it is another full stop but it's much softer than the perfect. It can sound like the traditional sung "Amen" at the end of hymns in church. Playing the perfect and the plagal several times one after the other may help the pupil to hear the difference. (And stressing the bassline too.) Also pointing out wherever any of the cadences are used in the pieces that they are working on also helps to reinforce. (There's a good example of the interrupted cadence in Chopin's prelude in B minor near the end, and also in the E minor near the end. Wonderful examples! Hope this all helps.

Something else that can help is writing out the bass line for different progressions so that the student learns to use this as a guide. You can then practise the ones which have the same bass note but two possible chords (eg iib and IV).

THank you all sooooo much for your great advice. I think the challenging part of it is to be able to identify the inversions such as: ib, iib, ivb, etc. I guess the more you listen to them, the better you are able to identify them. Once again, thanks for advising. Itsgoobie BTW, congratulations to thouston on getting such a high mark in that part.

First inversion chords sound 'weak' in comparison to root position chords which somehow sound more solid. Play the root, then the first inversion several times one after the other to compare the sound quality.

I use that analogy too.

Lots of examples in Beethoven!

The other point I make about the interrupted cadence is that composers make you think they are approaching a perfect cadence, then at the last minute "turn a corner" and go to the submediant chord instead of the tonic. Bear in mind that the major/minor "wrench" only happens in a major key. In the minor key V and VI are both major.

Yep - sorry - I was going to mention the minor key major-major but must have been distracted - but there is still a wrench even in minor keys - thinking about the 2 Chopin preludes I mentioned - V and VI are both major but the feeling is still one of wrenching. (Or the kind of feeling of 'wait a minute are you sure?.....(V-VI)....no, I was defintely right first time! (V-I.)