In music, acoda (/ˈkoʊdə/;Italian for 'tail'; pluralcode) is apassage that brings a piece (or amovement) to an end. It may be as simple as a fewmeasures, or as complex as an entiresection.[1]
The presence of a coda as a structural element in a movement is especially clear in works written in particularmusical forms. Codas were commonly used in bothsonata form andvariation movements during the Classical era. In a sonata form movement, therecapitulation section will, in general, follow theexposition in its thematic content, while adhering to the homekey. The recapitulation often ends with a passage that sounds like a termination, paralleling the music that ended the exposition; thus, any music coming after this termination will be perceived as extra material, i.e., as a coda. In works in variation form, the coda occurs following the last variation and will be very noticeable as the first music not based on the theme.
One of the ways thatBeethoven extended and intensified Classical practice was to expand the coda sections, producing a final section sometimes of equal musical weight to the foregoing exposition, development, and recapitulation sections and completing themusical argument. For one famous example, see the finale ofSymphony No. 8 (Beethoven).[3][page needed]
Charles Burkhart suggests that the reason codas are common, even necessary, is that, in the climax of the main body of a piece, a "particularly effortful passage", often an expandedphrase, is often created by "working an idea through to its structural conclusions" and that, after all this momentum is created, a coda is required to "look back" on the main body, allow listeners to "take it all in", and "create a sense of balance."[4]
Codetta (Italian for "little tail", thediminutive form) has a similar purpose to the coda, but on a smaller scale, concluding a section of a work instead of the work as a whole. A typical codetta concludes theexposition andrecapitulation sections of a work insonata form, following the second (modulated) theme, or the closing theme (if there is one). Thus, in the exposition, it usually appears in the secondary key, but, in the recapitulation, in the primary key. The codetta ordinarily closes with aperfect cadence in the appropriate key, confirming the tonality. If the exposition is repeated, the codetta is likewise repeated. Sometimes it has its ending slightly changed, depending on whether it leads back to the exposition or into thedevelopment sections.
Cauda, a Latin word meaning "tail", "edge" or "trail" is the root ofcoda and is used in the study ofconductus of the 12th and 13th centuries. The cauda was a longmelisma on one of the last syllables of the text, repeated in each strophe. Conducti were traditionally divided into two groups,conductus cum cauda andconductus sine cauda (Latin: "conductus with cauda", "conductus without cauda"), based on the presence of the melisma. Thus, the cauda provided a conclusionary role, similar to the modern coda.
Many songs inrock and other genres ofpopular music have sections identifiable as codas. A coda in these genres is sometimes referred to as an "outro", while in jazz,modern church music andbarbershop arranging it is commonly called a "tag". One of the most famous codas is found in the 1968 single "Hey Jude" bythe Beatles. The coda lasted nearly four minutes, making the song's full length at just over the seven-minute mark.
Inmusic notation, thecoda symbol, which resembles a set of crosshairs, is used as a navigation marker, similar to thedal segno sign. It is used where the exit from a repeated section is within that section rather than at the end. The instruction "To Coda" indicates that, upon reaching that point during the final repetition, the performer is to jump immediately to the separate section headed with the coda symbol. The symbol can be used to provide a special ending for the final verse of a song.
Thecoda sign is encoded in the Musical Symbols block of Unicode as U+1D10C MUSICAL SYMBOL CODA:[5] 𝄌
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