This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

by Daniel J. Levitin

Perhaps the most documented illusion—or parlor trick—in Western classical music is the deceptive cadence. A cadence is a chord sequence that sets up a clear expectation and then closes, typically with a satisfying resolution. In the deceptive cadence, the composer repeats the chord sequence again and again until he has finally convinced the listeners that we’re going to get what we expect, but then at the last minute, he gives us an unexpected chord—not outside the key, but a chord that tells us that it’s not over, a chord that doesn’t completely resolve. Haydn’s use of the deceptive cadence is so frequent, it borders on an obsession. Perry Cook has likened this to a magic trick: Magicians set up expectations and then defy them, all without you knowing exactly how or when they’re going to do it. Composers do the same thing. The Beatles’ “For No One” ends on the V chord (the fifth degree of the scale we’re in) and we wait for a resolution that never comes—at least not in that song. But the very next song on the album Revolver starts a whole step down from the very chord we were waiting to hear, a semi-resolution (to the flat seven) that straddles surprise and release.