Thursday, February 5, 2009

Wednesday, February 4 2009 -- more whole tones...

Continuing with my exploration of canons in the whole-tone scale, I made a quasi-Fuxian, 1st species canon.

For this one, I did it the "hard way" --rather than working out the canon a few notes at a time, I wrote the whole melody (cantus firmus). I based it on a Fux cantus but set it in whole tone which, of course, Fux, himself, never did.

Then I set about trying canonic possibilities. This particular way of working doesn't often yield success. I fully expected to have to tweak the cantus to make it work --but, I was lucky. It took only a few moments to line the parts up in a way that gave me all consonant intervals and no voice leading faults.

The fact that almost all the intervals are M10ths (M3rds+8ve) and minor sixths is a peculiar (and well-documented) feature of whole tone scales. I'll discuss this more in a day or so.

The octave in the penultimate measure results from my compunction to end with contrary motion. I ended the canon and move in opposite directions to close on the 10th.

(click on image to enlarge)

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