Here’s my Canon #79 – “Diaspore.”

I wrote this piece to explore 11/8 time, divided as 3+3+3+2.

In a recent post, I reflected on why I hadn’t managed to use an odd time signature in any of my first seventy-five canons. The reason is that I’m often seeking rhythmic contrast between the two voices, and I found it difficult to achieve such contrast while still reinforcing the structure of the odd meter. It seemed to me that in order respect the meter, I needed to make the voices more rhythmically similar, but for reasons good or bad, I simply didn’t want to do that. Finally, in Canons 76, 77, and 78 I found an approach I liked. The idea was to have the theme alternate between different subdivisions of the odd meter. So, for example, the theme in Canon 79 alternates between 3+2+2 and 2+2+3 subdivisions of 7/8. When such a theme is layered on itself with a skew, we hear contrasting subdivisions at once. A sense of rhythmic contrast is built into the framework, as is the indisputable fact of being in the odd meter. But now with Canon 79, I think I’ve managed to take the simple, direct approach to writing a canon in an odd meter. In Canon 79, at all times, in both voices, the same subdivision of 11/8 as 3+3+3+2 is operative. And lo and behold, there’s still enough rhythmic variety for my ear.

The piece is harmonically simple, falling squarely in A major with no alterations. It’s an invertible canon at the second, with diatonic imitation, and a lag of one bar. The soprano is the leader in the first half, and the roles are reversed in the second half. The ethos is buoyant.

For whatever reason, I seem to be more at home writing melodies that favor stepwise as opposed to arpeggiated motion; this piece is a rare example where a more arpeggiated style felt natural to me.

I’m happy with how the piece came out, but as I was writing it and listening to some of the early drafts, I wondered if it was just a “toy.” This got me thinking about the differences between “toy” and “miniature” in my own lexicon. To me, a toy is a small disposable piece, a piece that you write to learn something or to demonstrate a point, but that you wouldn’t revisit beyond a few listens because you don’t expect to discover anything new in it. A miniature can be mistaken for a toy because it’s also small and might seem simple, but if you make it your focus, you find enough subtlety and beauty within the piece’s narrow confines to envelop your entire awareness. That’s to say a miniature can become gigantic in your mind, while a toy cannot. As for an etude or technical study, it can be either toy or a miniature.

Of course I’m aiming to write miniatures, not toys, but if one of my pieces seems like a toy should I still give it a name and number and include it in my collection? I suppose so, if I like it well enough. Sometimes what one dismisses as a toy turns out to be a miniature. And sometimes a toy can be made into a miniature with a few small changes. Many of the canons I now consider as miniatures began as toys.

 

 

Announcing Canon #78 – “Verdite.” Listen to it here:

Canon 78 continues my exploration of odd time signatures – it’s in 7/8 – and it’s a companion piece to Canon 77 which is in 5/4. Like the earlier piece, Canon 78 is an invertible canon at the second, with a lag of one bar. The imitation is diatonic and the sonority emphasizes thirds and sixths. The piece is mostly in G major with some excursions to C. The melody is conceived with an alternating pattern of subdivisions of each 7/8 measure, going like this: 3+2+2 / 2+2+3 / 3+2+2 / 2+3+3. When such a melody is layered on itself with a skew of one bar, we repeatedly hear 3+2+2 against 2+2+3. At least, we hear a sense of 3+2+2 against 2+2+3; we don’t hear exactly that because the melody has been densely elaborated on top of that metrical framework and does stray from the framework or obscure it at times. The bass is the leader in the first half, and the roles are reversed in the second half. The ethos is sprightly and the texture is saturated. The piece came together pretty quickly, which for me means a few days. As with many canons, it was the cadences that caused me the most questioning. In many of my invertible canons I place a full cadence at the end of the first half and often leave a pause before beginning the inverted section. In this case I wanted to keep the motion going across sections, so I tried the make the cadence at the midpoint less conclusive than I normally would. As for the final cadences, they’re often challenging because, while you can always get the motion to stop, it’s not always apparent how to do that in a short space and do it in a way that’s convincing and satisfying. Here the solution involved bringing the lines quickly through an initial deceptive cadence, moving into an extra bar of free counterpoint which leads to the final cadence. A C# in one place hints at D major, which seems to add some freshness to the final return to G.

I’ve finished two new canons, #76 “Crocoite” and #77 “Aventurine.” Listen to them here:

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