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SOUND / CADENCE

Cadence

Start with a feeling. Follow the voices. Take the harmony with you.

Director’s Notes ↗

Describe a feeling, listen to a few possibilities, then choose Edit to shape one. You can include a key and tempo, such as “hopeful melancholy in D minor, 72 BPM.”

Reading this as bittersweet, melancholy, hopeful, cathartic, with the release held back.

Craft recommendations, not measured emotional predictions. Your brief is interpreted on this device. You choose what works.

01 / CRAFT RECIPE

Open, then fall

Bb – F – C – Dm

VI – III – VII – i · D Aeolian

73 BPM · suggested 68–78 · ballad

A major opening makes room for hope before the phrase settles on minor home.

Give it a melody

Begin on degree 5 (A). Let the line rise, then fall short of the tonic until the last phrase. These are prompts for your own melody, not a supplied tune.

Start with long notes and leave a breath between phrases.

Target notes, tension & range
  • Bb: Bb, D, F; try D on a strong beat
  • F: F, A, C; try A on a strong beat
  • C: C, E, G; try E on a strong beat
  • Dm: D, F, A; try F on a strong beat

Try holding degree 2 (E) briefly, then move by step into a listed chord tone. Check the clash against each chord before sustaining it.

Start within an octave in your comfortable register; expand only where the phrase needs it.

Exact linkDirector’s Notes

02 / CRAFT RECIPE

Holding it in

Dm – Bb – F – C

i – VI – III – VII · D Aeolian

73 BPM · suggested 68–78 · ballad

Minor home opens onto two major chords; the last chord keeps the loop moving instead of closing it.

Give it a melody

Begin on degree 5 (A). Let the line rise, then fall short of the tonic until the last phrase. These are prompts for your own melody, not a supplied tune.

Start with long notes and leave a breath between phrases.

Target notes, tension & range
  • Dm: D, F, A; try F on a strong beat
  • Bb: Bb, D, F; try D on a strong beat
  • F: F, A, C; try A on a strong beat
  • C: C, E, G; try E on a strong beat

Try holding degree 2 (E) briefly, then move by step into a listed chord tone. Check the clash against each chord before sustaining it.

Start within an octave in your comfortable register; expand only where the phrase needs it.

Exact linkDirector’s Notes

03 / CRAFT RECIPE

At the edge of release

Dm – Bb – Gm – A

i – VI – iv – V · D Aeolian

73 BPM · suggested 68–78 · ballad

The minor chords gather weight before a major dominant. Stop there to hold the release back; return to D minor when you want it to land.

Give it a melody

Begin on degree 5 (A). Let the line rise, then fall short of the tonic until the last phrase. These are prompts for your own melody, not a supplied tune.

Start with long notes and leave a breath between phrases.

Target notes, tension & range
  • Dm: D, F, A; try F on a strong beat
  • Bb: Bb, D, F; try D on a strong beat
  • Gm: G, Bb, D; try Bb on a strong beat
  • A: A, C#, E; try C# on a strong beat

Try holding degree 2 (E) briefly, then move by step into a listed chord tone. Check the clash against each chord before sustaining it.

Start within an octave in your comfortable register; expand only where the phrase needs it.

Exact linkDirector’s Notes

04 / CRAFT RECIPE

A step down

F – Am/E – Dm

I – iii [6/4] – vi · F Ionian

73 BPM · suggested 68–78 · ballad

The bass falls by steps beneath a major start. The phrase lands on vi rather than returning to the major tonic.

Give it a melody

Begin on degree 5 (C). Let the line rise, then fall short of the tonic until the last phrase. These are prompts for your own melody, not a supplied tune.

Start with long notes and leave a breath between phrases.

Target notes, tension & range
  • F: F, A, C; try A on a strong beat
  • Am/E: A, C, E; try C on a strong beat
  • Dm: D, F, A; try F on a strong beat

Try holding degree 2 (G) briefly, then move by step into a listed chord tone. Check the clash against each chord before sustaining it.

Start within an octave in your comfortable register; expand only where the phrase needs it.

Exact linkDirector’s Notes

05 / CRAFT RECIPE

Home changes its light

F – Am – F – Fm

I – iii – I – i · F Ionian

73 BPM · suggested 68–78 · ballad

The home chord returns and then turns minor. This is a tonic color change, not a minor-iv progression.

Give it a melody

Begin on degree 5 (C). Let the line rise, then fall short of the tonic until the last phrase. These are prompts for your own melody, not a supplied tune.

Start with long notes and leave a breath between phrases.

Target notes, tension & range
  • F: F, A, C; try A on a strong beat
  • Am: A, C, E; try C on a strong beat
  • F: F, A, C; try A on a strong beat
  • Fm: F, Ab, C; try Ab on a strong beat

Try holding degree 2 (G) briefly, then move by step into a listed chord tone. Check the clash against each chord before sustaining it.

Start within an octave in your comfortable register; expand only where the phrase needs it.

Exact linkDirector’s Notes
How these suggestions work

A local vocabulary maps your words to several simultaneous feelings and a phrase direction. It ranks 12 authored harmonic recipes by those matches, with a small preference for different cadence types. Unrecognized language returns contrasting starting points. It is a finite craft library, not a claim to understand every emotional sentence.

Key, mode, BPM, instrument and supported feel words are applied when recognized. Changing the reference mode does not rewrite chord qualities. No historical key-affection claims, corpus frequency or listener coefficients enter this ranking.

Getting started & operating notes

Hear why a chord change works. A chord is a group of notes; a progression is a sequence of chords. Cadence lets you hear, alter and export that sequence without reading a score first.

How to use this
  1. Use the guided start

    Keep Guided view on. Open Show walkthrough and load Find home: C, F, G, C.

  2. Listen before changing

    Hear the full progression, then hear the third chord and the final chord. One feels less settled relative to the ending. Your response may differ.

  3. Compare one decision

    Follow the walkthrough to keep version B and alter A. Compare them before exporting MIDI or taking the brief to Director’s Notes.

Try this: Keep C major and the same tempo. Compare F → C with F minor → C. The altered chord replaces A with A-flat.

You should get: You hear a specific note change while the other settings stay stable. The chord labels explain which notes changed.

Know the limit: Feeling labels are listening hypotheses. Corpus frequency is not emotional truth; historical affections are interpretation, not a scoring input.

Build and invert one chord
Turn off Guided view for source-key, swing, and detailed analysis controls.
Start here · a five-step listening session
Song excerpts & evidence library

Your progression

A · Working version. Changes are undoable. Save a snapshot as B to compare an idea.

Guided studies
Try a listening study

Original teaching examples, separate from the attributed song library.

Transposing changes the note names; Roman numerals keep their harmonic relationships.
A · Ready

Affect estimates & evidence

How might this feel?

Compare the estimate with what you hear. Valence runs from unpleasant to pleasant; arousal from calm to activated. Bittersweet feelings can combine positive and negative responses that these two axes cannot fully express.

Estimated, unreviewed. A listening hypothesis, not a measured probability or a prediction about you.

Evidence for this pattern

No imported song-affect observations match this tonic-aware pattern yet. All numerical estimates here currently come from an uncalibrated model.

Prior contribution to valence: 100%. Coverage measures sample size; it does not establish annotation quality.

External corpus frequency is not available for this pattern. The song library’s count describes its curated excerpt set only.

What changes the estimate?

Tempo and playing feel move the arousal estimate. Mode and chord quality influence the cold-start valence estimate. Changing the mode selector alone does not change the qualities of typed chords; use a recoloring to change the harmony you hear.

InputCurrent model contribution
Chord quality0.00
mode+0.30
tempo-0.28
feel-0.20

Version exploratory-1. These coefficients and the 50-song prior strength are AUWEN design defaults, not values fitted by the cited researchers. The tempo adjustment is centered on 90 BPM, not a measured tempo for the source recordings. Song associations retain all the influences of their original performances.

One unique song contributes once. Rotations are grouped for chord-shape frequency, while affect keeps chord order, tonic, mode and bass. This prevents a loop rotation from silently changing the meaning of a cadence. The historical affections lens never enters this calculation.

Sources, pipeline and current coverage →
Tell Cadence what you hear

Listen first, then rate these exact notes and playback settings. Ratings are saved under your signed-in account and held for owner review. Free-text words are kept as words; no word-emotion lexicon has been imported yet.

Build & inspect

Choose a chord below to inspect it. Add from the key palette, or replace the selected chord. Every edit can be undone.

Am9 · minor ninth

Built from: A · C · E · G · B. vi9 locates its root within C major.

Actually voiced: E2 · A3 · B3 · E4 · G4 · C5. The first note is the bass; octave numbers tell you how high each note sits.

These chords use the notes of your selected key and mode. In natural minor the palette uses the unraised seventh scale degree; a major V or V7 can be entered separately.

Type a chord or paste a complete progression

Separate chords with spaces. C is major, Cm is minor, Cmaj7 adds a major seventh, and C/E places E in the bass. Roman numerals such as ii7 V7 Imaj7 use the source key. Turn off Guided view to change it.

Follow the voices · notes and movement

Each line follows one voice through the chords. Higher on the diagram means higher in pitch. Rhythm comes from your selected feel.

Exact voicing by chord; each color follows one voiceE2A3B3E4G4C5C2G3A3E4F4C5C2G3B3D4E4C5B1G3B3D4E4B4
1

Am9

vi9

A · C · E · G · B

Voiced: Am9/E · vi9 / E
Function & recoloring

Scale degree 6

2

Fmaj9

IVmaj9

F · A · C · E · G

Voiced: Fmaj9/C · IVmaj9 / C
Function & recoloring

Scale degree 4

3

Cmaj9

Imaj9

C · E · G · B · D

Voiced: Cmaj9 · Imaj9
Function & recoloring

Tonic-root chord

4

G6/B

V(add6) / B

G · B · D · E

Voiced: G6/B · V(add6) / B
Function & recoloring

Dominant-root chord; first inversion

Explore a different color

Save B first to keep a reference, then try one change. These operations alter harmony; they do not guarantee a particular emotion.

Each change gets its own voicing, shareable state and export.

Take the change with you

Exporting version A. Choose MIDI for music software, an exact link to reopen this sound, or Director’s Notes for a Suno brief.

Direct this in Suno ↗
MIDI carries the played rhythmic events, individual voices, chord labels and tempo. Humanization is deterministic, so what you export matches playback.
Theory reference

Cadence field guide

What am I looking at?

A progression is a sequence of chords. Each chord is a group of notes. The player chooses a voicing: which octave each note occupies and which note sits lowest. The same chord can have many voicings.

What do the numerals mean?

Roman numerals locate a chord’s root within the selected key. In C major, C is I, D minor is ii, and G is V. Lowercase usually marks minor quality; a degree sign marks diminished. Extensions such as 7 and 9 add chord tones.

Key, mode and transposition

The sounding key chooses the tonal center. Mode supplies its scale pattern: Ionian is major; Aeolian is natural minor. Transposing changes the pitches while preserving the chord pattern. Changing mode changes how Roman-numeral input is interpreted; typed chord symbols keep their specified quality.

What is a cadence?

A cadence articulates an ending or pause in a musical phrase. A V–I chord move alone does not establish every detail of a classical cadence: melody, bass, meter and phrase context matter. Here, the ending tools are compositional starting points.

How do A and B work?

A is the working version. Save a snapshot as B before changing it. Hear A / Hear B switch the listening version, at the next bar while a loop runs. Editing while viewing B makes a new working A. Copy B to A restores its full settings. Undo and redo change A; B stays your comparison.

What does the diagram mean?

Read the voice-leading diagram from left to right, one column per chord. Higher notes are higher on the diagram. Each line follows one voice. Nearly horizontal lines mean small movements. It shows chord voicings, not the exact timing of every arpeggio or strum.

Which feel should I use?

Weightless holds each chord for a bar. Sparse leaves more space over two bars. Ballad breaks the upper notes into eighth notes. Waltz puts bass then upper chords in three beats. Pulse uses sixteenth-note motion. Strummed staggers the notes. Swing affects the moving ballad/pulse patterns.

Which export do I need?

MIDI contains notes, timing and tempo for a DAW or notation app; it is not an audio recording. Text is a readable chord sheet. Exact link reopens the sounding progression and settings. Director’s Notes carries it into an editable Suno brief. Suno can interpret rather than reproduce exact harmony.

Where is my work saved?

The latest working draft and B snapshot are saved on this browser when storage is available. Undo history lasts for the open session. Account collections are saved across devices after sign-in. Export a session JSON file for a portable backup; clearing browser data removes local drafts.

Why can a chord edit be refused?

The engine retains chord tones and limits voice movement, including the loop back to the start. Some sequences have no supported path. A refused edit leaves your last working version intact. Try fewer extensions, a shorter progression, another key or a different ending.

Theory reference: Open Music Theory: triads, chord symbols and Roman numerals. The exercises and tool instructions here are AUWEN’s own.

No sound?

Press a play or chord button to start audio; browsers need a direct interaction. Check Cadence’s volume slider, your device’s media volume and the selected speaker or Bluetooth output. Try Filtered synth if samples fail to load. Stop and press Play again after switching away from the app. Browser playback can pause when a phone locks.

Keep this session

Backup includes A, B and these notes. An exact progression link includes only the sounding progression and its settings.

Historical affections — reading only
HISTORICAL LISTENING / BAROQUE & BEYOND

Affections & the character of keys

Music as an art of moving the listener: two related traditions behind the search for a particular feeling.

Doctrine of the affections

Affektenlehre concerns how music expresses and arouses passions such as joy, grief, anger, love or devotion. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, this thinking drew on rhetoric: the composer and performer could move an audience as an orator could. Melody, rhythm, harmony, dissonance, texture and delivery all participate.

Monteverdi’s 1638 discussion of anger, equanimity and humility is one period example. The expressive aim could govern how words were set and performed. Music of the Baroque: rhetoric and the passions ↗

A governing affect is a useful listening lens, but “one movement, one emotion” is an oversimplification. Doctrine of the affections is a later historical umbrella term; scholars question the idea of one unified Baroque rulebook. Period accounts also describe music acting on bodies and souls, beyond merely depicting a named feeling. Bettina Varwig: an emotional history of listening (PDF) ↗

Tonartencharakteristik

Key characterization attributes expressive qualities to named keys: a particular character for D minor, for example. It overlaps with thinking about the affections, while asking the narrower question of what choosing a tonic and mode contributes.

Johann Mattheson discusses keys in Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1713). Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s much-shared descriptions come from writings of 1784–85, published posthumously in Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst (1806). Schubart belongs to a later chapter of this history, beyond the Baroque period.

The writers did not agree on a fixed emotional dictionary. In 1739, Mattheson himself allowed that a key described as sad could carry the opposite feeling. Heinichen had already challenged the habit of crediting the key for a composer’s expressive achievement. Read the historical debate ↗

Charpentier’s character of keys · ca. 1682

Seventeen key and mode descriptions attributed to Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Règles de Composition. The English wording below is transcribed from the supplied reference table; its translator is unidentified.

Key and mode descriptions · Charpentier, ca. 1682
KeyDescriptive comments
C majorgay and warlike
C minorobscure and sad
D majorjoyous and very warlike
D minorserious and pious
E♭ majorcruel and hard
E majorquarrelsome and boisterous
E minoreffeminate, amorous, plaintive
F majorfurious and quick-tempered subjects
F minorobscure and plaintive
G majorserious and magnificent
G minorserious and magnificent
A majorjoyful and pastoral
A minortender and plaintive
B majorharsh and plaintive
B minorsolitary and melancholic
B♭ majormagnificent and joyful
B♭ minorobscure and terrible

“Gay” here means cheerful or merry. Period wording, including “effeminate,” is retained. The table assigns the same description to G major and G minor. These are historical expressive associations, not measured emotional effects or inputs to Cadence’s scoring.

Compare historical readings of the same key

Selected English paraphrases of the original German, preserving the authors’ different emphases. These are attributed historical judgments. Schubart’s imagery includes the religious, bodily and gender assumptions of his time.

Mattheson (1713) and Schubart (1784–85 / published 1806)
KeyMatthesonSchubart
D minorDevotion, composure and dignity; also capable of flowing pleasure.Brooding melancholy, expressed through the gendered imagery of his period.
E minorPensive grief that still hopes for consolation.Tender lament with hope of fulfillment in C major.
C minorSweetness mixed with sadness; livelier motion can counter its languor.Love declared through longing and the pain of unhappy love.
F minorQuiet but profound anguish, helpless melancholy and a sense of dread.Deep sorrow, funeral lament and yearning for the grave.

For a different shade of hope, Schubart links B♭ major with affectionate cheerfulness and longing for a better world, and G♭ major with relief and triumph after struggle. His palette reaches beyond a simple major/happy, minor/sad division.

Sources: Mattheson’s minor-key descriptions, pp. 236, 239, 244, 248; Schubart, pp. 377–380. In German notation, B means B♭ and H means B natural; the key names above use English notation.

Temperament, instruments & listening in Cadence

Temperament is the tuning of intervals within the octave. In unequal temperaments, a transposition can change the sizes and beating of thirds and fifths. Instrument resonance, available notes, vocal range, register and musical conventions also shape a key’s practical character. Historical descriptions therefore belong to particular musical settings.

Cadence currently uses twelve-tone equal temperament: corresponding intervals have the same frequency ratios in every key. Transposition still changes absolute pitch, register, voicing and sampled timbre. It does not recreate a historical temperament or establish that a key reliably produces a particular emotion. Period discussions of tuning, instruments and key character ↗

Try a listening comparison: keep the progression, mode, tempo and instrument fixed. Store it as B, transpose A, then switch between them. Note what you hear before reading a key’s description. The voicing engine may choose new inversions, so this is an exploratory comparison rather than an isolated test of tonic alone.

Try an expressive comparison: keep the key fixed and change the feel, spacing or ending. Ask how tension gathers and how the cadence releases it. A bittersweet arc can be a relationship between events, even when no single chord or key carries that whole description.

The two exercises are contemporary composition prompts. Cadence’s emotional tags remain editorial interpretations of progressions; the historical descriptions here do not automatically determine those tags or the search ranking.

Private collections

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Sources, interpretation and instrument notes

Song analyses are adapted from the de Clercq–Temperley Rock Corpus, CC BY 4.0. Excerpts are transposed and revoiced here. No song lyrics, melodies or recordings are reproduced. The current library contains 55 excerpts from 15 songs; the search count above shows only the matching excerpts. Emotional labels and cadence classifications are editorial suggestions awaiting AUWEN’s review workflow; source authors did not assign these labels.

Rarity counts distinct source songs containing an imported progression class; rotations are grouped. It is not a claim about all music. Borrowed variants keep their own state and remain unreviewed until approved.

Soft piano and electric piano use original synthesized samples with two velocity layers and decay tails. These are not recorded felt-piano libraries. If loading fails, the filtered synth plays the same voicing. The engine limits inner voice movement to a major third and the top voice to a major sixth; unsupported paths are reported before playback.

Research corpus and license ↗ · Curation & review desk