How to write extended perfect authentic cadences
I am currently writing a Berceuse in the style of Chopin and I noticed in a lot of his music and that of other romantic composers in the final perfect authentic cadences they repeat it multiple times in different ways. Could someone give me some insight on how to construct those kinds of cadences?
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Try analyzing the examples you know about and look for the elements that get varied for each repetition. Some things to look for:
harmonic rhythm, does the duration of each chord change for each repetition? Does either the tonic or dominant chord get a longer duration for the repeats?
range, are any repeats placed into a different octave?
melody, do the repeats involve melodic changes? What kind of figuration: arpeggiation, chord tone embellishments?
are there any harmonic effect like a pedal point or vii°7 substituting for V, etc?
especially for the Romantic style look for expression markings, crescendo, etc. How are the repeats articulated?
Identify the musical characteristic of the repeated cadences you want to emulate and then apply those characteristics to your own work.
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