Cadence Finder

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Key: Auto

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1	Note
2	Interval
3+	Chord
5+	Scale or mode

The four cadences

Cadence	Final motion	What it does
Authentic	degree 5 to degree 1	The dominant resolves to the tonic. The standard close.
Plagal	degree 4 to degree 1	The subdominant moves to the tonic. The amen ending.
Deceptive	degree 5 to degree 6	The dominant turns to the submediant instead of the tonic.
Half	anything to degree 5	The phrase comes to rest on the dominant, unfinished.
No cadence	any other motion	Reported plainly rather than forced into one of the four.

The test is read off scale degrees, not chord names, so it holds in every key and every mode without a per-key table.

How final each one sounds

Type	Character
Perfect authentic	Both chords in root position, tonic in the top voice. Strongest.
Imperfect authentic	Same degrees, but inverted or with the third or fifth on top.
Plagal	Softer than authentic: no leading tone pulling into the tonic.
Deceptive	Sets up an arrival and withholds it. The phrase continues.
Half	Open. Asks for an answering phrase.

Reference

How do I get a cadence out of it?

Play the first chord, press Add to progression, then play the second and add it too. The strip below the result names the key it has settled on, the chain of Roman numerals, and the cadence at the end. Two chords is the minimum, because a cadence is a motion and one chord is not going anywhere.

Why does it say there is no cadence?

Because the last two chords are not one of the four shapes. Only degree 5 to 1, degree 4 to 1, degree 5 to 6, and anything landing on degree 5 are cadences here. A ii to V motion in the middle of a phrase is real harmony but it is not a close, and a tool that called it one would make the word useless.

What makes an authentic cadence perfect or imperfect?

The voicing, not the degrees. Both chords in root position with the tonic in the top voice makes it perfect, which is the strongest close in tonal music. An inversion in either chord, or a third or fifth on top, makes it imperfect: the same V to I motion, arriving with less finality.

Is ii-V-I one cadence or two?

One, with an approach in front of it. The cadence is the final motion, V to I, and the ii is the predominant that sets it up. The strip shows the whole numeral chain, so you can see the approach and the close as separate facts rather than having them collapsed into a single label.

Background reading on each type lives in Cadences. To build a progression rather than name one, use the Chord Progression Generator.

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