half step
half note
half cadences
eight note is half a beat

They are not the same thing, but somehow some of my students keep thinking they are related.

Any tips when deliver these concepts?

How are you presenting them presently, and in what manner are they confused?

I've never encountered this problem before. I've seen kids who confuse finger numbers with beat numbers (counts).

Hold off on explaining note values and beats until the kid has had learned division and fractions in school.

You don't have to explain all the concepts if the student struggles. One can still play the piano fine without knowing what a half cadence is. In the grand scheme of things, it's really no big deal if the student doesn't know what a half step is.

This might be a problem with understanding multiple denotations. Some kids automatically shut down when they get overwhelmed with too much information.

For once I'm grateful for UK-speak.

What's a half-cadence then?

Students will confuse anything, given half a chance.

Wikipedia says a half-cadence is "any cadence ending on V" and says an alternate name is semicadence.

What do you call it in the UK?

I had to look it up because I have never yet succeeded in memorizing all the cadence names (apart from plagal), partly because every time I try, I soon find another source which uses a different set of cadence names. I think what I need to learn is the function and significance of different cadence patterns, regardless of names, and then it would be easier for me to hang names on them.

It's generally referred to as Imperfect Cadence or Half-close.

Where I am it's:

Semitone
Minim
Imperfect cadence
quaver is half a (crotchet) beat

No worries. (well, not the same worries, anyway)

If a student is unsure about what is a half-step, or that a 1/8 note is half a beat (but not in 6/8 or 12/8 time!), then the concept of a half cadence is too advanced for them. For them it is rocket science.

Stick with the fundamentals until they are well established.

As has been said, if a cadence ends on V, it is imperfect.

I'm with rocket, surely by the time they are on to cadences, they have internalised the rest?

As has been said, if a cadence ends on V, it is imperfect.

I'm with rocket, surely by the time they are on to cadences, they have internalised the rest?

Nobody has talked about this, which concerns me:



An eighth note is NOT a half beat. No note in and of itself is any proportion of a beat. That depends on the time signature.

What happens is that students get music in the beginning that always has 4 in the signature: 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 They learn that the "quarter note gets the beat", and they associate the quarter note with the beat. They think the quarter IS the beat. Then when they get 3/8 etc. it is mass confusion.

An eighth note is half of a quarter note. Two eighth notes fit in the time of one quarter note. If the quarter note gets the beat, then two eighth notes will fit into that beat, but the relationship is with the quarter note, not with the beat.

Rocket addressed it above.

I see what you are referring to - this:


But this involves compound vs. simple time. Also, the same kind of terminology is being used, that equates notes with beats. When teaching rudiments I make very sure that the student makes a difference between relationship between note values, and beats. They tend to fuse, and they shouldn't.

I didn't get into a thorough dissertation about the fact that a note is not a beat because that is not the topic of this thread. (Good catch, though, Keystring!)

The topic as I see it is that a teacher appears to be teaching a somewhat advanced concept (half cadences) to students who are so ungrounded in the basics that they are confused about elementary things such as a half-step and a half-note, and perhaps also with whatever other musical terms happen to begin with the word "half".

If the student confuses half notes with half beats, then this simple vs. compound meter stuff will just fly over her head. I steer clear of explaining simple vs. compound meter until the student is in the 4th or 5th grade (or later).

Well, "perfect" vs. "imperfect" cadence means a totally different thing here in the states. You want to look that up, too?

Wikipedia gives definitions using the set of terminology where perfect and imperfect refer to types of voicing of a V-I cadence. Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to talk about the different sets of terminologies where the same words mean completely different things. Here is a page using the set of terms where perfect vs. imperfect refers to V-I vs. I-V, but it doesn't say if there are any terms in that set to describe the voicings of V-I cadences, in particular to distinguish the bass & soprano = tonic from the other voicings.

My point was that compound vs. simple meter was being stressed, but that is not the problem. The problem is in stating that a NOTE VALUE EQUALS A FRACTION OF A BEAT. It doesn't. (emphasizing - not shouting )

Good to know, thanks for alerting me. According to this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_(music)
and imperfect cadence can be a kind of 'authentic' cadence (which I would have called a 'perfect' cadence).

Confusion abounds!

Could you clarify, AZN? What does it mean in the US?

In RCM we learn that a "perfect" cadence is the type that ends a phrase, i.e. it ends on I. V-I, V7-I. Then there are subgroups such as the "authentic" where the melody note is 1.

"imperfect" ends on V, such as I-V and IV-V - it gives a pause or idea that there is a second half (other phrase) and similar.

"plagal" is the "amen chord"

"deceptive cadence" fools you ... you think you're going to I, but instead it goes to vi ... V-vi.

These are basic concepts taught over here. How do they compare to the US? I have never heard of a "half cadence" before this week.

The Wikipedia page I linked to earlier gives the terminology that I believe AZNPiano is referring to, where perfect/imperfect refer to voicings of a V-I cadence, and V-I cadences vs. I-V cadences are called authentic vs. half cadences.

This is helping me, because I had never quite realized that the different terminology might be English (Commonwealth) vs. American. I have a variety of harmony books; now I'm curious as to which terms they use, and if it correlates with where they were published.

Am I imagining this, or are V-I cadences sometimes called closed cadences, and I-V cadences are sometimes called open cadences?

And if I-V cadences are called half-cadences in one system, why aren't V-I cadences called full cadences in that system?

[ETA: yikes! I just spotted what keystring said about authentic cadences in the system she learned. So in both systems a V-I cadence with the melody ending on the tonic is a perfect authentic cadence, but in one system perfect means V-I and authentic means melody ends on tonic. And in the other system it's exactly the reverse: perfect means the melody ends on tonic and authentic means V-I. Horrible, horrible, horrible. No wonder I've always been confused when I tried to learn the terminology.]

LOL

This thread has truly evolved. Way OT.

I did not know what a perfect authentic cadence is, either, until some kid put that answer on his CM theory test, and the entire grading room was clueless, so we had to consult the expert. It turns out that perfect/imperfect (at least in the American system) is used to describe the voicing of the final chord, to have the tonic on the top and bottom. So the kid's answer was actually correct. The concept of perfect/imperfect is not part of the CM curriculum.

Now who's confused???

Ah, I found the half cadence in my (literally) dusty Sarnecki.

Perfect - V-I
denotes resolution. (So if in the start of your music you have a bunch of V-I-V-I-V-I to establish the tonic, that's note a cadence).
- If the I chord has the melody end on the tonic, then it is "closed" and it's the strongest kind of cadence. Well obviously, if a song ends on the tonic that's pretty final.
- If the melody ends on the 3 or 5 of the I chord, then it is "semi-closed". In other words, you expect the music to continue.

Perfect is also called "authentic" in this system.

Imperfect of Half Cadence (here's where they use this) I-V
- It's designated as "open" because you expect the music to continue even if a section might be finished.


So kid got his mark for the answer, I take it?

I am guessing that Sarnecki is being "bilingual" or "bi-geographic" by using Perfect as well as Authentic, and then Imperfect as well as Half. Are Authentic and Half used in the US?

(This might be a question for Kreisler).

I learned about perfect and imperfect authentic cadences back in my college days. Not that I really have much use for that information, 30 years later . . .

We have not yet heard back from ezpiano, to find out exactly where the problem lies, or how these things are being presented.

When you are first introducing note values to a student, you are going to tell them that a quarter note gets one beat, half note gets, two, etc. Same with 1/8 notes. Issues of compound meter opens up a whole new can of worms that the student may not be ready to process yet, and so I see no problem avoiding the topic altogether by speaking only in the time signatures that the student is currently working with when learning a new note.

With that said, why are they learning about cadences at this point? I can see learning how to play I IV V I progressions, but I wouldn't introduce the word "cadence" at all for a while.

Same goes for half steps, although these can be introduced as long as they are taught alongside whole steps. Then there is little room for confusion with half notes. It's half step vs. whole step. And neither should be taught prior to a good understanding of intervals, IMO.

I am sorry for late reply.
Here is the order of presentation (the length of lesson is approximately and differ from students to students)
Half note is two beat by 2nd month of lesson.
Eighth note is half a beat by 5th month of lesson.
Then some student would confuse that half note is only half beat, or call eighth note a half note.
Half step by about 8th month of lesson.
When asked what is a half step, some students will tell me half step is 2 beats. In that case, I would then play a half step then a whole step on piano then ask him which one is a half step, the student would get it right.
Mostly those that confused will get the right answer if I provide them some choices in the answer, but they won't get it right without choices.
Half cadences by 2 years of lesson.
When asked what is half cadences, again, some students will tell me 2 beats. In this case, then I have to provide them the list of V-I, or I-V, or IV-I, then they will get the right answer for half cadence.
So, again, those confused will get right answer only if I provide the choices. They can't get it right if I only ask: "What is half cadence?"
I hope I make sense here.

No it's not repeating the same thing.

In the U.S. the term Authentic is describing the harmonic movement of V-I. Perfect is describing how the chord is voiced, specifically that the tonic is in the upper or soprano voice in the I chord. So a Perfect Authentic Cadence means the harmonic progression is V - I, and the ending I chord has scale degree one in the soprano voice. (It seems you have the terminology of calling this a "closed cadence"?) An Imperfect Authentic Cadence would still have the harmonic movement of V - I, but would have either scale degree 3 or 5 in the soprano voice.

So the student on his CM test knew exactly what he was talking about.

The Aldwell/Schachter Harmony and Voice Leading also identifies "semicadence" as another name for "half cadence", but I've heard "half cadence" used more often by U.S. educated musicians.