Where does cadence collide?

The short chord progression that brings a musical phrase to a point of rest, marking where one unit of music ends and giving the listener a feeling of arrival or of being left hanging: theorists name types such as the authentic cadence that lands firmly on the home chord, the gentler plagal cadence, and the deceptive cadence that promises rest and then swerves away. Caplin's 2004 The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions argued that a cadence marks formal closure of a phrase, is built from a tightly constrained sequence of chords, and must be told apart from a mere rhythmic or textural stop. The referent here is a pattern of harmony that closes a phrase in a score, not a rider's pedalling rate, a team's release schedule, or the falling rhythm of a spoken sentence.[1]

Unit

One closing chord progression at a phrase ending, named by type such as authentic, plagal, or deceptive

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified by analysing the chords and voice leading at the end of a phrase in a score or performance

The rate at which a cyclist turns the pedals, counted in crank revolutions per minute, and by extension the step rate of a runner counted in steps per minute: it is a measured rhythm of the body's cyclic movement, and riders trade a higher cadence against the force needed on each stroke. Lucía, Hoyos, and Chicharro's 2001 Preferred pedalling cadence in professional cycling reported that professional riders tend to settle at high cadences of around 70 to 90 revolutions per minute on flat and climbing terrain. The referent here is a rate of leg movement per minute, a number set by the athlete's legs, and it has nothing in common with a chord that closes a phrase, a schedule of software releases, or the drop of a voice at a sentence's end.[2]

Unit

One full pedal revolution, scaled as revolutions per minute

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Counted by a crank or pedal sensor as revolutions per minute, or for runners as steps per minute, during exercise

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a phrase its falling rhythm as it draws to a close, together with the drop of the voice at the end of a spoken utterance: it is the way a sentence or a line of verse sounds like it is coming to rest, a rhythmic settling rather than a chord or a schedule. Croll's 1919 The Cadence of English Oratorical Prose traced the deliberate rhythm at the ends of English sentences back to the medieval cursus, the fixed stress patterns oratorical writers used to close their clauses. The referent here is the rhythm and falling pitch of language at a phrase ending, felt in the ear, and it is not the harmony of chords, the rate of a rider's legs, or a team's schedule of releases.[3]

Unit

The rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, and the falling pitch, that close a phrase

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Analysed by scanning the stressed and unstressed syllables at phrase endings, or by tracking the falling pitch of the voice in recorded speech