caters Posted January 17, 2020 Posted January 17, 2020 So, I have the canon that ends the Presto section of my Spring piece, all set in terms of melody, register, and number of voices. I stuck with 3 voices for this canon, because I don't think that this particular melody lends itself well to 3 voices on the piano. But, I'm finding that I am getting some harmonic troubles and I think it has to do with the delay of my canon being 1 measure. The harmonic troubles I am getting are like for example, 2 voices playing notes from a D major chord and 1 voice playing a note from A7. With the delay I have now, I have like 1 parallel fifth between 2 voices, which, since I'm not aiming for baroque style, I'm okay with. Now, I tried shifting by a measure forward in each comes voice and I did get more harmonic cohesion. But in exchange I got a whole slew of parallel octaves, 1 after the other(It was 10 octaves in a row). That I am not okay with. So now I'm wondering, is there a delay that would both improve harmonic cohesion and have as few parallels as possible? Here is the canon as it is now with 3 voices: As you can see, there are quite a few places where 2 voices are playing notes from the tonic and the other voice is playing a note from the dominant and vice versa. And because of the rhythm, the harmony only resolves on the last eighth note which just leads into the the next note. This makes the canon harmonically incohesive. Now, like I said, I tried fixing this harmonic issue by shifting both voices in the piano by a measure so that the entrances would be 2 measures apart, but that lead to there being 10 octaves in a row, which I just am not okay with. So is there a way that I can both fix this harmonic cohesion issue and minimize parallels without having to change the melody or its rhythm? MP3 Play / pause JavaScript is required. 0:00 0:00 volume > next menu Canon from Springtime Springs > next Quote
Luis Hernández Posted January 18, 2020 Posted January 18, 2020 Too difficult to make a strict canon for three voices at the unison/octave.In the example above there are lot of seconds (or equivalent) intervals. I would try to make it for two voices and additional free bass line. Quote
caters Posted January 18, 2020 Author Posted January 18, 2020 11 hours ago, Luis Hernández said: Too difficult to make a strict canon for three voices at the unison/octave.In the example above there are lot of seconds (or equivalent) intervals. I would try to make it for two voices and additional free bass line. And here I thought that out of all the intervals you can have a canon at, the octave was the easiest for 3 or more voices. But, if 2 voices is better for this particular canon, then I will do it in 2 voices. It will still amount to 3 voice counterpoint because of the bass line, but only 2 voices will actually be in canon. Sounds fair. Maybe just getting rid of the canon line in the bass will improve the harmonic cohesion of the canon as a whole and lead to there being less of the overlapping tonic and dominant. Quote
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