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So, I am working on a set of canons as a prelude to the fugue. No, not literally, as in I would put these before the fugues I write. No, what I mean is that I view the canon as being simpler than the fugue in all sorts of ways and thus as a preparation for fugue writing. I aimed for a more Bach like feel to this canon than the Pachelbel like Canon in Bb that I composed for woodwind quartet. I even went so far as to write it for harpsichord instead of piano to further get that Bach feel to it. Now, why am I mentioning Bach? Well, he is the composer that keeps encouraging me to go ahead and write a fugue. I put some text in the score related to keys and counterpoint. Now I have been told that my canon is really a canon at the sixth. Alright, I'm fine with that. I have also been told that my canon is full of dissonant strong beats and just in general, unresolved dissonance. Here is the first canon in my set of 48 canons. What do you think of it? Does it sound Baroque in its nature? Where are my counterpoint errors exactly? And what are those errors? Do you think I should add a bass line to this?

So I have been studying counterpoint for a long time, like more than a year. And I have tried writing fugues before because I am a fast learner and I figured that if I studied counterpoint, I would be able to write a fugue. Well, that hasn't happened yet. My 4 voice fugue attempts have always been futile(getting parallel octaves even when I'm trying hard not to get parallel octaves). So I figured that maybe, I'm just not ready for 4 voices yet. That and the fact that I have done canons before my extended study of counterpoint(mainly Bach style counterpoint I'm studying because I view Bach as the master of counterpoint and who better to learn from than the master) made me decide to do a 2 voice canon. And since all of my previous canons have been in major keys, I decided to do this one in a minor key. Now to decide on the voices. There are so many voice combinations. Here they are for 2 voices: Soprano and Alto Soprano and Tenor Soprano and Bass Alto and Tenor Alto and Bass Tenor and Bass 6 voice combinations may not seem like a lot, but it does lead to a lot of decisions. Then after deciding on the voice combination, there is deciding whether the higher voice or the lower voice is the comes voice(in other words, the voice that starts the canon). And then there are decisions related to contrapuntal techniques(like do I want it to be a crab canon(1 voice is the retrograde of the other)? Mirror canon(1 voice is the inversion of the other)? Table canon(1 voice is the retrograde inversion of the other)? Augmentation canon? Diminution canon?). I decided to go simple with this canon. No inversion or retrograde. No augmentation or diminution. As for the voice combination, I decided on soprano and tenor. This naturally lead me towards doing a canon at the octave, one of the most simple of interval canons. And I decided on doing my canon with vocals instead of instruments(which is why you will see that I don't go any faster than 16th notes in the canon). If I were to write this canon for instruments, I could easily put in a 32nd note entry. But, unless the piece is very slow, 32nds are hard for the human voice and at a certain tempo, it becomes impossible. So the fastest that I go in this canon is 16th notes. I have put a lot of text in the music, the text is my own contrapuntal analysis of it. Is there anything that I missed? And are there any mistakes besides the parallel octaves? Here is my incomplete canon:

Still getting familiar with harp writing (and pedals). A classic canon Part A in G minor at the seventh (or second + octave) Part B: D min at the fourth down motu contrario Part A': the same A but inverted counterpoint. harp canon - SCORE.pdf