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Cadences: Soprano Alto Tenor Bass

Most choirs and instrumental music uses four voices: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Music for these voices can be arranged in either a short score with the soprano and alto on one staff and tenor and bass on another, or an open score with each voice on its own staff. Cadences, or harmonic progressions that conclude a phrase, include the perfect cadence, imperfect cadence, plagal cadence, and interrupted cadence. The plagal cadence features a subdominant chord followed by a tonic chord, while the interrupted cadence begins similarly to a perfect cadence but ends on the submediant chord instead of the tonic.

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402 views

Cadences: Soprano Alto Tenor Bass

Most choirs and instrumental music uses four voices: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Music for these voices can be arranged in either a short score with the soprano and alto on one staff and tenor and bass on another, or an open score with each voice on its own staff. Cadences, or harmonic progressions that conclude a phrase, include the perfect cadence, imperfect cadence, plagal cadence, and interrupted cadence. The plagal cadence features a subdominant chord followed by a tonic chord, while the interrupted cadence begins similarly to a perfect cadence but ends on the submediant chord instead of the tonic.

Uploaded by

sithija fernando
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Cadences

Most choirs and instrumental music uses a combination of four different voices.
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass

The music for these four separate parts are arranged in two different ways.
 Short Score
 Open Score

Short Score
In a two-stave layout, the upper voices, Soprano and Alto, are written in the
Treble clef on the top stave, and the lower voices, Tenor and Bass, are
written in the Bass clef.

Open Score

In a four-stave layout, each part has its own stave in the order of Soprano,
Alto, Tenor and Bass.

60
Arranging notes of the chords as Short Score

Here is an example of music written in SATB.

- Play each part separately on Recorders or Keyboard.


- Play all the parts together using different instruments such as Keyboard, Piano and Recorder.

As you know,
In harmony, chords are arranged for four voices or parts as Soprano, Alto,
Tenor and Bass (SATB). In arranging a Triad for four voices, one note has
to be doubled or to appear in two parts. The best note to be doubled is the
root. Compare the previous lesson on arranging Triads.

- The top note in the Treble with the stem upwards,


- The note in the Alto part with the stem downwards.
- The top note in the Bass with the stem upwards.
- The lowest note in the Bass with the stem downwards.

How to arrange notes of the chord

Example : Tonic triad of A major, root position.

ACEA

You will see that there are two A(s) [one in the Tenor and in the Bass] and also
that the notes of the chord are spread out fairly evenly across the staves. This
makes the chord sound clear and balanced and gives all the singers/players a
note to sing/play that suits their range.

61
Four-part chords in Root position

- In Root-position triads or chords, the lowest


or root note of the triad appears in the lowest or Bass
part.
- In Figured Bass, the full figuring for a root-position
chord is 5
3

Exercise 1
Write out the root-position chords as indicated. (The triad is given above.)

Four-part chords in First Inversion

 In First Inversion, the third note of the triad appears


in the lowest or Bass part.
 In Figured Bass, the full figuring for a First Inversion
chord is 6 . The figure 3 is omitted and only figure 6
is used. 3

Exercise 2
Write the following 1st Inversion chords in SATB. (The triad has been given above.)
Exercise 3
Arrange the following chords in SATB according to the chord indication.

Exercise 4
Label the following chords with Roman numerals.

Exercise 5
Write the missing chords as indicated.

Exercise 6
In the following extract, identify and label the chords indicated by the asterisks.

(Example) 1.Dominant chord – Root position.


2.
3.
4.
Plagal and Interrupted Cadences
Of the four cadences that are to be considered, two have been already dealt with.They
are the Perfect cadence and the Imperfect cadence, or the full- close and the half close.

The Plagal Cadence

The Plagal cadence is also called the Amen cadence which is another form of
final cadence. It consists of the subdominant chord IV followed by the Tonic
chord I. These are the pairs of chords to which “Amen” is generally sung at the
end of hymns. Its rhythm is weak to strong as in the Perfect cadence.

Study the illustration given bellow

Note that
The two bass notes rise a 5th or fall a 4th

The common note is in the same part

The inner parts of S A T B move smoothly without leaps.

The Interrupted Cadence

The Interrupted cadence is also so called because it starts as if it would end on a Perfect cadence,
but it ends in the sub-mediant interrupting the full-stop. The interrupted cadence is non-final, and
may occur in the course of a sentence but not at the end. When writing the Interrupted cadence, the
bass notes rise from V-VI- Dominant to Sub Mediant. The 3rd note of chord VI is doubled.

Study the illustrations


VI A C C E
V GBDG
Note that

The leading of the key appearing in chord V has risen to the

tonic in chord VI The 3rd note of chord VI is doubled.

The leading note in the minor key is raised and risen to the tonic.

The following illustrations will give an idea of how cadences sound at the end of phrases. The
same phrase is used ending with different cadences. Play them on a key board instrument.
Exercises

1. Define ‘cadence’

2. What are the 4 main types of cadences?

3. Describe the writing of an interrupted cadence

4. Why is the Amen cadence so called?

5. Write the Perfect cadence and Imperfect cadence for S A T B using


key signatures in the keys of A major and F minor

6. Write the Plagal and Interrupted cadence for S A T B using accidentals,


in the keys of EbMajor and B minor

7. Play the cadences written, on a key board instrument.

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