# Explanation of False Endings



## adriesba

I know hardly anything about music theory, so, sorry if this is an elementary concept. 

Someone on YouTube mentioned that a piece of music had a lot of false endings. So this is when the music sounds like it is going to end but doesn't? I don't hear it. Could someone explain exactly what this is and maybe give examples?


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## Woodduck

It's hard for me to imagine a piece that has a lot of false endings, though I'm not sure exactly what's meant by that. If it means what you suggest (as good a guess as any), an example might be the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony, which rather notoriously tricks audiences into starting to applaud before the final statement of its big tune. A subtler example could be the finale of Beethoven's 5th, which might be heard as induging in a cumulative series of near-endings.


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## adriesba

Woodduck said:


> It's hard for me to imagine a piece that has a lot of false endings, though I'm not sure exactly what's meant by that. If it means what you suggest (as good a guess as any), an example might be the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony, which rather notoriously tricks audiences into starting to applaud before the final statement of its big tune. A subtler example could be the finale of Beethoven's 5th, which might be heard as induging in a cumulative series of near-endings.


OK, those examples make sense to me, but I'm not sure if that fits what this person was talking about.

The comment is on this, by the way (only 5 comments):


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## Woodduck

I see the comment. It doesn't convey anything to me, unfortunately. Certainly nothing of a technical or theoretical nature.

That tenor is awful, by the way.


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## adriesba

Woodduck said:


> I see the comment. It doesn't convey anything to me, unfortunately. Certainly nothing of a technical or theoretical nature.
> 
> That tenor is awful, by the way.


Yeah, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I don't really hear anything there that sounds like it's about to end but doesn't.

Agreed, that tenor was terrible, one of the worst I've heard. I had to stop listening. Surprisingly, elsewhere on YouTube people were saying he was really great. All I hear is bad pitch and wobble, wobble, wobble!


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## pianozach

Woodduck said:


> I see the comment. It doesn't convey anything to me, unfortunately. Certainly nothing of a technical or theoretical nature.
> 
> That tenor is awful, by the way.


*Gertrude Grob-Prandl & Hans Beirer-"Geliebter, sag, wo weilt dein Sinn", Tannhäuser Duet Act I
*

Thanks. I thought maybe it was just me.

What a beautiful introduction though. Seems to be a rather old mono recording. I don't know when the recording was made, but Beirer was born in 1911, if that's any indication.

It's singers like this that kept me away from opera for decades.

And I'm not going to sit through 25 minutes of tenor caterwauling just to listen for the "false endings".


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## adriesba

Is this anything relevant? I got lost once he started talking about all the chords.


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## adriesba

pianozach said:


> *Gertrude Grob-Prandl & Hans Beirer-"Geliebter, sag, wo weilt dein Sinn", Tannhäuser Duet Act I
> *
> 
> Thanks. I thought maybe it was just me.
> 
> What a beautiful introduction though. Seems to be a rather old mono recording. I don't know when the recording was made, but Beirer was born in 1911, if that's any indication.
> 
> It's singers like this that kept me away from opera for decades.
> 
> And I'm not going to sit through 25 minutes of tenor caterwauling just to listen for the "false endings".


The description says it's from 1971. Maybe that's why.

He's in another performance from 1963 on YouTube. He's marginally better there but still pretty bad.


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## Woodduck

adriesba said:


> Is this anything relevant? I got lost once he started talking about all the chords.


Ah. The proper name for what this fellow is demonstrating is "deceptive cadence." Maybe popular musicians call such cadences "false endings" (possibly because the forms in popular music are generally simple and there's not much occasion for a deceptive cadence mid-piece), but deceptive cadences are quite common in classical music where the end of the piece is nowhere in sight. Interesting that the comment on YouTube applies to a bit from _Tannhauser,_ since deceptive cadences are one of Wagner's basic tools for articulating internal forms, getting to a new key, and keeping the music going while avoiding the feeling of separate "numbers" in his operas.


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## adriesba

Woodduck said:


> Ah. The proper name for what this fellow is demonstrating is "deceptive cadence." Maybe popular musicians call such cadences "false endings" (possibly because the forms in popular music are generally simple and there's not much occasion for a deceptive cadence mid-piece), but deceptive cadences are quite common in classical music where the end of the piece is nowhere in sight. Interesting that the comment on YouTube applies to a bit from _Tannhauser,_ since deceptive cadences are one of Wagner's basic tools for articulating internal forms, getting to a new key, and keeping the music going while avoiding the feeling of separate "numbers" in his operas.


Is an example of this the way "O, du, mein holder Abendstern" ends, meaning, instead of ending on the note expected like it would if performed by itself in a recital, it ends on the more unsettling note that makes the transition into Tannhäuser's appearance?


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## Woodduck

adriesba said:


> Is an example of this the way "O, du, mein holder Abendstern" ends, meaning, instead of ending on the note expected like it would if performed by itself in a recital, it ends on the more unsettling note that makes the transition into Tannhäuser's appearance?


Yes indeed. A very Wagnerian move! Maybe the most dramatic deceptive cadence in his work is the terrifying ending of the love duet in _Tristan,_ which is heading inexorably toward resolution on a major triad but ends on a diminished one with a dissonance added for good measure. Of course the same music gets resolved at the end of the opera.


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## adriesba

Woodduck said:


> Yes indeed. A very Wagnerian move! Maybe the most dramatic deceptive cadence in his work is the terrifying ending of the love duet in _Tristan,_ which is heading inexorably toward resolution on a major triad but ends on a diminished one with a dissonance added for good measure. Of course the same music gets resolved at the end of the opera.


Ah yes, this makes sense to me now!


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## hammeredklavier




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## Gargamel

What about if you have a cadence (authentic or otherwise) at the end of the song, but you add a few chords after the cadence so the song doesn't end on the tonic? For example, I invented a C major song on the guitar, which had a cadence in the end, but after the cadence in C major, I thought it sounded good to have an (incomplete) E minor dominant 7th chord! (I guess you can't call this an irregular cadence, since there already was a real cadence.)


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## EdwardBast

Gargamel said:


> What about if you have a cadence (authentic or otherwise) at the end of the song, but you add a few chords after the cadence so the song doesn't end on the tonic? For example, I invented a C major song on the guitar, which had a cadence in the end, but after the cadence in C major, I thought it sounded good to have *an (incomplete) E minor dominant 7th chord*! (I guess you can't call this an irregular cadence, since there already was a real cadence.)


I don't know what to call it because there is no such thing as an "E minor dominant 7th chord." Do you mean an incomplete dominant 7th chord in the key of E minor (B, D#, A)?


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## Gargamel

EdwardBast said:


> I don't know what to call it because there is no such thing as an "E minor dominant 7th chord." Do you mean an incomplete dominant 7th chord in the key of E minor (B, D#, A)?


Ah, sorry. I forgot that "dominant seventh chord" always denotes a *major third* and a perfect fifth. Maybe the correct the term is minor 7th chord or minor/minor 7th chord. (E. G. minor third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh). I mean a iii degree seventh chord in the key of C major. (E, G, B, D.)

This is how my song ends:
https://vimeo.com/user128819875/review/488824121/4f038ca824

It's in C major, and the progresssion is I-iii-IV-V-I. But as I was strumming the tonic chord, I decided that there was too much C major, and the final strum ended up being another chord - the e minor chord. And after a few e minor chords (E-B-E-G...), the final chord of the song ends up being e minor 7th. (E-B-D-G...). This is because of how I sang the vocals (missing in the video)


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## EdwardBast

Yeah, for everyday discussion one would just say E minor 7th, especially if one had already stated the key. Without that context and if one was identifying the chord in isolation to identify its "type," one might want to say minor/minor 7th.


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## Tikoo Tuba

An ending that is True is not announced in any way .


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> It's hard for me to imagine a piece that has a lot of false endings, though I'm not sure exactly what's meant by that. If it means what you suggest (as good a guess as any), an example might be the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony, which rather notoriously tricks audiences into starting to applaud before the final statement of its big tune.


Try this
0:20 ~ 1:10


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