I only ask because I remember ages ago reading that the Beatles won an Ivor Novello Songwriting Award (I think, or something similar) back in the '60 when it was judged by a bunch of conservative suits, and they praised the Beatles for the clever use of an Aeolian Cadance. John Lennon accepted the award, saying he always thought an Aeolian Cadance was an exotic type of bird.
Wish I could remember what the song was so I could figure out what this cadance involves. At first I figured it was V-I but using chords built from the aeolian mode (e.g. in A, it would be Em-Am) but that seems way too simple...
Well, there isn't one, which probably explains the confusion.
In terms of the Lennon story, the classical music critic of the London Times used the phrase in a review of the Beatles back in 1963. (Here's a link to that review - the reference is at the end of paragraph 4)
Aeolian is a scale; cadence is a progression between two chords. So an Aeolian cadence might be any of the cadences that occur when using the natural minor scale... v-i (Em-Am) for the authentic cadence, iv-i (Dm-Am) for the plagal cadence.
But the song he's talking about (Not a Second Time) ends on G-Em. That's not a standard cadence.
My guess is he made it all up.
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edit: was just providing a link to the song title; "Not a Second Time." Noteboat replied more thoroughly while I was typing.
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
Cheers noteboat and slejhamer :) I remembered reading it in a mate's old copy of Guitarist magazine, they were doing a feature on Beatles' songwriting techniques and that was featured in it with the accompanying story. Guitarist are usually pretty good on the theory side, so I just assumed it must be accurate but when I did modes I forgot to ask my tutors and later realised I still didn't understand the aeolian cadance thing. Glad it's not just me having a stupid moment, then. :wink:
