Canon

Canons

The word itself means 'rule' and when a piece of music is called a Canon it means that it obeys the rule of 'Follow-my-leader'. For example, here is the well-known hymn tune called Tallis's Canon. The soprano is the leader, and the tenor part follows it throughout:

Tallis's Canon is a 'canon at the octave' - the voices are eight notes apart. But it is possible to have canons at the unison, or fifth or fourth - or, indeed, any interval, though it becomes more difficult to make a satisfactory canon if the interval is an awkward one.

Canons can also take place between more than two parts - though again, the larger the number of parts the greater the problems involved.

There are many different kinds of canon, some of which call for great ingenuity. For example:

Double canon: two canons at once: each for a pair of voices.

Canon by augmentation: the voice that imitates does so in longer notes than the voice it is imitating.

Canon by diminution: the opposite of canon by augmentation.

Canon cancrizans: the imitating voice gives out the melody backwards.

Infinite: canon: the end and the beginning are dovetailed, so to speak, and the canon can go on for ever.

Canon by inversion: the imitating voice is a mirror version of the main voice if the main voice goes up a 3rd, the imitating voice descends a 3rd, and so on.

Short vocal canons for singing are called ROUNDS or CATCHES. The idea behind the word 'round' being that the melody comes 'round' again and again, and that behind the word 'catch' being that the singers 'catch' up the melody one after the other. Three blind Mice is an example.

From "Oxford Junior Companion to Music"

I put this here for information but, apart from the bit about rounds and catches at the end, I don't have a clue what it means. So much for the junior companion to music.

One of Moondog's canons

"This canon is prophetic when it comes to number 10, for there is where
the calendars reverse priorities in what is quite beyond compare.

The calendar, 2000, is above until it unisons on A.
The calendar, 10000, is below until it unisons on A.

Who'd ever guess the overtones would lend themselves to such a mundane thing
as calendars, for we are mindful of the great authority they bring

The overtones from one to nine in both directions represent the space
between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Glaciations where it's taking place.

Take note of this, each note equates a thousand years of Interglacial Thaw
the Seventeenth that's coming to an end, a picture no-one wants to draw.

Before we humans quite the Stage of Life we should consider just how nice
it's been and will be till this place is covered by a mile or more of ice."

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