Canon
Queue
Simple sounding yet complex in nature, Canons, I believe, are an amalgamation of some of the most important elements of music in the simplest of forms. My Canon, Queue, was difficult to write not only due to the restrictions of canon writing but by the restrictions I placed on myself in writing. It is a simple Canon or Round written with little motive or pre-established ideas, however it's simple model was inspired by the canons I've been taught over the years, two notable ones being Ah Poor Bird and London's Burning. The title was thought up by my fascination with the word Queue, definition; a line or sequence of objects awaiting their turn to be attended to or to proceed. Much like the way each voice follows after the previous in same fashion, it's also worth noting that Queue itself only has one voiced letter, the Q at the start, reminiscent of how a Canon is in fact made up of one tune alone.
I began by writing a short melody that would be simple to play and suite a wide range of instruments. I first wrote 4 bars, added in a second voice and altered a few notes to match the third and fourth bars and then repeated that process on the other bars. It would have been easy to include semibreves in my piece to create easy harmonies, but I felt that would make my canon too simple for my own tastes. I instead altered the rhythms of the bars I felt were to simple or complex so they all were somewhat more balanced. From there I simply played through the canon, altering the few parts that had disharmony until it all flowed well.