The Cadential 6/4

Dr. Justin Henry Rubin 2005

The I chord in any key only functions as the tonic in root position and first
inversion. In second inversion it no longer acts as the tonic in the way that we
perceive its sonority. Therefore it is a misnomer to describe a chord that appears to
be the tonic but not sound or function as such as a I 6/4 (although many older music
theory methodologies allow for this misleading analytical label). Instead, this
particular chord is bound to its resolution to the dominant and cannot be used
independently. Since it is not quite a tonic chord (although it has all of the notes of
the I) nor a dominant, we label it as a Cadential 6/4 (analytical notation: Cad 6/4 or C
6/4) as it is used primarily at the cadence point and functions as aterminal predominant (meaning that it normally progresses to the dominant).
1. Dispelling the Misconception. It is important for the student musician to
remember that the notation of chord analysis is a means to illustrate how the
sonorities are being used by the composer to develop a sense of harmonic
progression. With this in mind, a I chord can only be labeled as such if it functions as
a tonic, which it clearly does not in second inversion. Listen to the following example
and note how the music does not come to rest at the so-called 'I 6/4' but maintains a
significant degree of tension.

2. Resolution of the Dominant. Compare the previous example to the following

passage: it is identical until the tonic chord arrives in root position. Note that the
tension of the dominant is completely released.

3. The Cadential 6/4 and its Resolution. Before any dominant chord, a composer can
insert a cadential 6/4 to increase the tension as the end of the phrase approaches.
The proper cadential 6/4 chord features two dominant pitches, one which must be in
the bass voice (to facilitate comprehension of this concept, the chords in the
example

below

feature

simple

voicing).

As

well,

the tonic pitch

and

the mediant must occur in the remaining voices. The bass voice maintains the
dominant pitch in the resulting V chord (the other dominant can as well remain on the
same pitch or descend to the seventh of the V7 chord, depending on the desired
version of the dominant chord resolution), while the tonic descends to the leading
tone and the mediant descends to the supertonic.

One alternate to the second example is to reverse the resolutions of the voices
articulating the doubled dominant (in this illustration, the bass move from G to F and
the tenor from G to G). This results in the V7 becoming a V2 (or third inversion
dominant seventh chord), and thus an eventual resolution to a first inversion tonic
(I6).

4. The Cadential 6/4 in Context. Here we have integrated the cadential 6/4 into the
passage from example 2. above. Note that its placement after the ii 6/5 substantially
increases the harmonic force leading to the dominant seventh as we now have two
terminal pre-dominant chords occurring successively. The doubled dominant in
the Cad 6/4 is split between the bass and alto, while the tenor articulates the tonic
and the soprano the mediant. Similarly to any other chord, non-harmonic tones can
be applied to the cadential 6/4.