Canon: The style of music where one part echoes another piece

Canon music can be an amazing way to escape the rigors of the world, and the best part? It’s not all that hard to play! 

It’s time to learn how this style of music works so you too can unleash your creativity.

Here is the answer for, a piece of music where one part echoes or imitates another part is known as what?

Canons are pieces that play one musical phrase after another in different voices, or parts. 

They’re called “canons” because they follow strict guidelines for preventing two phrases from playing at once, which often forces musicians to echo each other exactly by following these rules. 

Each voice of the canon goes through all the same notes, but for some reason, the piece’s form changes slightly with each repetition of these notes. 

There are two common types of forms in canons: the pattern canon and the faux-canon.

• The Pattern Canon

A pattern canon is essentially a series of phrases that repeat themselves exactly. This is usually done by playing just one line at a time while another voice plays in perfect harmony over it. 

Imagine two people talking to us while we’re trying to eat lunch at work, and you have to pick one word that they say while ignoring what they say before or after that word. 

This keeps the listener from getting confused, since you know they’ll start over once they finish. It’s the same idea with a pattern canon.

• The Faux-Canon

A faux-canon is a piece that uses all four voices in a canon at once, just not in the right order. 

What I mean by this is that it’s essentially a canon where you can hear all voices at once, but because of a clever choice in musical phrasing the musical line doesn’t sound quite right. 

Here are some points about the style of music where one part echoes another piece-

1. The phrase played in the lowest voice is called the “cantus firmus”.

It is Latin for “fixed melody.” Just hearing this line by itself will tell you exactly what the piece is. Most of the time it’s a phrase from a song. 

There are exceptions to this rule, but it’s most common to see the cantus firmus as a popular song or hymn.

2. The phrase played in the middle voice is called the “cantus plebis”.

It is Latin for “plebeian melody.” This is where you’ll hear most of the sounds that make up a canon. 

Different melodies may be used depending on what kind of music you’re playing or if you want to give a special mood to a piece. It’s usually pretty simple but still recognizable at some point.

3. The last voice is called the “cantus infima”.

This is the lowest voice, and it’s usually a fourth or a fifth above the cantus firmus. Because of this, you won’t hear it that often. 

Sometimes this part will take melodies from the other voices, but you can tell that they’re not exact because of how low they are.

4. If there’s a middle voice instead of a cantus firmus voice, it’s “cantus medius”.

This part acts similarly to the cantus firmus melody in the middle voice, but it acts more like an inner harmony rather than an actual melody by itself. 

Lots of times both parts will play together to double up on notes in a chord.

5. The cantus firmus is usually one of the first parts heard in a canon.

The faux-canon may come before it. This may not be followed by all composers, though; some composers use this rule as another way to give an element of surprise to their piece.

The word “canon” comes from two Greek words that mean “law” and “reed.” You can see this word origin reflected in its definition: “a set of rules governing the composition or performance of music.” 

Composition is, after all, about making new laws to govern what you do with your music.

The whole idea behind the word “canon” is to make sure that the music is correct in terms of form. 

If you can’t keep your music in canon, then it’s not that good! Songs that are out of canon are called “chords”, and they work really well because the composer gives you a reason for hearing them. 

6. Faux-canon creates an effect that mirrors the cantus firmus melody.

If you were to play all four voices at once, you would hear this exact same thing, but it would have a little more oomph in it. This is because there are so many different melodies in an octave.

‘t’ The music the composer wrote makes sense to most people, but you know that it’s not exactly what people are hearing. 

Chords are supposed to hint at what he heard, but they’re too out of tune for everyone else to hear all the same notes with that same harmony.