Using a Deceptive Cadence

A Deceptive Cadence is one of the musical ideas taught in the Music Theory for Guitar program.  Worship musicians make use of the deceptive cadence frequently in order to lengthen a worship song. Here’s a short teaching video I put together for you. At the end of the video, you can hear a deceptive cadence used on the song ‘He Is Lord’.

It is common for any worship song to finish using a chord referred to as the V, or the V7, to the chord known as the I. Now there is not enough space here to speak regarding the numerous chord constructions and keys, however the I chord is the actual root chord of the key. For instance within the key of ‘G’ the I is a ‘G’ chord. The V within the key of ‘G’ will be the chord ‘D.’

The ‘D’ or ‘D7’ chord resolves beautifully into the chord ‘G.’ A deceptive cadence is whenever you switch to your VI chord at the conclusion of the tune rather than the I.

An example could be the song ‘Lord I Lift Your Name On High.’ I am aware that a lot of you may have the ‘Worship Guitar Class‘ program and this particular song is inside the very first volume. The chords tend to be mainly ‘G C D C.’ The song finishes using the chords ‘D,’ ‘Dsus,’ G…..

The deceptive cadence for that key of ‘G’ is the VI chord and that is the chord ‘Em.’ As an alternative to using ‘D,’ Dsus,’ ‘G’ … you could play ‘D,’ ‘Dsus,’ Em.’ This ‘Em’ is on the final word ‘high.’ Play for the full measure and then 1 / 2 a measure with ‘Am’ as well as ‘D’ ‘Dsus’ for that 2nd half of the measure and then finish on the pattern ‘G C D C and G’. This particular ending is below…

| Am      Dsus        D           | Em |
Lord I lift your name on high.

| Am      Dsus        D           | G C | D C | G
Lord I lift your name on high.

We usually perform the deceptive cadence two or three times prior to ultimately concluding on G. Knowing music theory is a good skill to acquire for guitar players.