Question and answer: the musical phrase – free course

A musical phrase is a lot like a spoken sentence. "Are you coming tonight?" — "Yes, I'll be there at eight." The question rises and hangs in the air; the answer picks up the same words and lands firmly. In music this dialogue is called the antecedent (the question) and the consequent (the answer). Together they form a period, the basic cell of thousands of melodies, from Mozart to today's songs.

1. Open notes and closing notes

Not every note of the scale gives the same sense of ending. In C major:

Feeling	Notes	Effect
Closed	C (and to a lesser degree E)	"full stop": we are home
Open	D, G, B	"question mark": we wait for more

D, G and B are the notes of the G chord (the dominant). Ending a phrase on one of them means stopping on the dominant: this is called a half cadence. Ending on C over a C chord is a perfect (authentic) cadence.

2. A two-bar question, a two-bar answer

The simplest recipe: the answer starts like the question and only changes the ending. The ear immediately understands that this is a dialogue.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=96
K:C
"C"C E G E | "G"D4 | "C"C E G E | "G"D B, "C"C2 |]

Bars 1–2: the question hangs on D. Bars 3–4: same beginning, but the melody passes through B (the leading note) and settles on C.

3. The eight-bar period

Let's scale it up: a four-bar question and a four-bar answer. This is the classical period, found everywhere in Haydn, Mozart or Schubert. Listen carefully to bars 4 and 8: they are the two "punctuation marks".

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=100
K:C
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] "C"E2 G2 | "F"A G F E | "C"G E C E | "G"D4 | "C"E2 G2 | "F"A G F A | "G"G F E D | "C"C4 |]
[V:LH] C,4 | F,4 | C,4 | G,,4 | C,4 | F,4 | G,,4 | C,4 |]

Bars 1–2 and 5–6 are almost identical: this is what holds the period together. In bar 7 the melody steps down G–F–E–D towards the final C, supported by G in the bass: that is a perfect cadence. A period like this, where the answer starts like the question, is called a parallel period.

Tip: sing your question out loud, lifting your voice slightly on the last note as if asking a real question. If the music "sounds" like a question, you have chosen the right open note.

4. Dialogue elsewhere: call and response

In blues, gospel or jazz this is called call and response: one phrase is thrown out, another answers it, sometimes in a different register (high right hand, then low left hand). The principle is the same: create an expectation, then satisfy it. You will meet it again in the blues lesson.

Common mistakes:

Ending the question on C: the phrase already sounds finished and the answer has nothing left to say.
An answer unrelated to the question: you hear two different ideas instead of a dialogue. Start the answer like the question.
Reaching the final C by a big leap: the conclusion sounds abrupt. Approach it by step, from D (above) or B (below).

Your workshop

In the piano roll, take your motif and write a two-bar question ending on D or G.
Copy those two bars straight after, then change only the ending so that it reaches C by step: that is your answer.
Expand it into an eight-bar period: a four-bar question (ending on D, G or B) and a four-bar answer that starts the same way and ends on C.
Add a left-hand bass in semibreves: C under C–E–G notes, F under F–A, low G under D–G–B. Under the two endings, use G (bar 4), then G and C (bars 7–8).
Compare your work with the example period: do you really have two different punctuation marks?

Self-check: play only the first four bars to someone. If they ask "and then?", your question works.