DECEPTIVE CADENCE
( In Memory of June Dempsey )

her fingers
caress the keys
and music blooms

the dusty piano
sitting in a corner
comes alive again

eager to tell us
what each note
tells it to tell us

she places my hands
not on the keys
but upon her hands

a musical piggyback
my hands riding
the waves of music

and I living
the beauty of it all
tremble to the touch

the music enjoying
this shadowing
so much so

that it never wants to
let go
of us

but time
erases us and we
fade with the music

*

This little bit of broken memory...just this little fraction of time keeps getting played and just as it fades out then begins again. And so it begins and ends...begins and ends.

A deceptive cadence occurs when a chord progression seems to be coming to an end but doesn’t. In major keys, a deceptive cadence often happens when a minor 6th chord is played rather than a dominant 5th chord.

This is a tool for composers and songwriters to play with listener expectations, and it helps them to extend and develop their musical ideas.