Techniques From Songs: The Way Back to One (Plagal Cadence) (Sufjan Stevens - Tonya Harding)

This time in Techniques from Songs, I am going to use Sufjan Stevens’ Tonya Harding to talk about the way back to one chord.

I don’t want to make it too complicate, so I will try not to use musical terms to explain this. You might feel that there are certain orders in the chord progressions from playing lots of songs, like in the key of C, it usually start from C and after G it goes back to C. If you try to analyze it by writing out all the triads in C and give them a roman numeral in order, you will find out that it’s like a song usually start from the I chord and after V chord, it usually goes back to I chord.

In the key of D it will be D and after A it will goes back to D. But in the end of the intro of this song, it goes back to D after G.

That means you can also go back to I chord after IV chord. It’s actually called “Plagal Cadence” and “the way back to one” can be called “Cadence”. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t want to talk too much about these terms, so you can try to google it be yourself, if you are interested!

Next time when you are writing a song, try to use IV chord to go back to I chord, instead of V chord.

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這次的Techniques from Songs將要用Sufjan Stevens的Tonya Harding，來聊聊如何回到一級和弦。

我不想解釋得太複雜，所以會儘量避免使用音樂術語。你可能在練習歌曲的過程中，隱約覺得和弦進行好像有某種規律。像是C大調的歌中，總是從C開始，而G和弦後面總是接著C和弦。倘若你試著寫出C大調的所有三和弦，並依序寫上羅馬數字，會發現這可以解釋成一首歌總是從第一級和弦開始，而第五級和弦後總是會接上第一級和弦。

在D大調時，就是從D和弦開始，在A和弦後面總是會接著D和弦。但是在這首歌的前奏結束接到A段時，卻是從G接到A。

這就表示著，你其實也可以用第四級和弦，接回到第一級和弦。這樣的做法其實稱為「變格終止」，而回到第一級的方法，其實可以被稱為「終止式」。但如同頭開頭所提的，我不想對名詞做太多解釋，所以有興趣的人可以自己去查查這些名詞。

下一次，你在寫歌時，記得也試試第四級回到第一級的作法喔！