Learn Composing › Write Your First 8-Bar Melody › Lesson 5
⏱ ~8 min · Write Your First 8-Bar Melody (5/6)
Just as a sentence ends with a period, a melody needs a signal that says "we're done." That closing gesture is called a cadence. The most conclusive cadence is a return to C, the tonic — the home note of the key — held out nice and long.
Listen to the example below. With the very same melody, stopping on B leaves everything hanging in mid-air; only when it comes down to C does the period land.
Just before ending on C, passing through the notes of the G (dominant) chord — G, B, and D — announces that the ending is coming. Building tension and then resolving it home, this G-to-C motion is the heart of the cadence.
Bar 7 of "Morning Walk" moves D–E–D–B. D and B both belong to the G chord, so they swing the door wide open toward the C in bar 8. B3 in particular sits right below C and pulls toward it with real force — which is why it's called the leading tone.
Bar 8 is a single whole note on C4. Stretching the final note out — a whole note or a dotted half — lets the sound ring and closes the song securely. End on a short note and the piece feels cut off mid-thought, so watch out for that.
Your 8-bar melody is complete! Open it in the editor and play it from top to bottom. The open question in bar 4, the climax in bar 5, the final whole-note C in bar 8 — does it tell a story from start to finish? Then try changing the final C to a different note and play it again; you'll hear immediately why it has to end on C. One tip for entering bar 7 yourself: press J for B, then select that note and press Shift+↓ to drop it an octave to B3. Next lesson, we'll add dynamics and tempo markings to turn this into a finished score.