79: Rounds

 Let’s continue our discussion of form with a very popular nursery rhyme: Frere Jacques. Frere Jacques is (well, can be, and very often is) an example of what’s called a “round.” Rounds are the simplest form of imitation. They are a special case of another imitative form called a “canon,” which we’ll discuss later. 


Listen first to a purely monophonic Frere Jacques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC6rvbxdywg&list=RDBC6rvbxdywg&start_radio=1


The idea is very clearly in 4: 


1 2 3 1 | 1 2 3 1 | 3 4 5 ~ | 3 4 5 | etc. 


(Here, I’m borrowing a notation from Laura from before I could read music; ~ turns the preceding number into a half note: quarter quarter quarter quarter | quarter quarter quarter quarter | quarter quarter half | quarter quarter half | etc.)


So, what happens if you, very simply, start another 1 2 3 1… halfway through that four bar phrase I just put above, like 


1 2 3 1 | 1 2 3 1 | 3 4 5 ~ | 3 4 5 ~ | etc

                           1 2 3 1 | 1 2 3 1 | etc.

Now, you have “Frere Jacques Frere Jacques [at this point start another “Frere Jacques Frere Jacques…”] dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? [start another “Frere Jacques”…] etc.”


“Frere Jacques is in imitation against itself, that is, you’re playing or singing “Frere Jacques” not with another melody, or a simple accompaniment, but with another exact copy of itself as its own accompaniment, and it must be “at the unison”. (That is, it cannot be “C D E C C D E C E F G” in one voice and then “G A B G G A B G B C D B C D” in the following voice—almost identical, but up a fifth; or anything of the sort.)  This is key. If this does not happen—if the accompaniment is in any way different—whatever you’re listening to does not meet the criteria for a round, so it’s either a round, some generic imitation that’s similar but not quite the same, or not at all imitative, just generally contrapuntal.  


Frere Jacques sounds like this (first, in regular 4-part harmony, then imitatively): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5_f6GnSLo&list=RDPW5_f6GnSLo&start_radio=1


This idea that something can accompany itself is the key to imitation. I chose Frere Jacques for a reason (that I did not know, when I was first exposed to Frere Jacques as a gateway into imitation, but I know now): because it’s easy to figure out where would be best to start the next voice; it doesn’t take much work at all to check that where I have written out the numbers above (where Julien begins his imitation as well—not at all by coincidence) is the perfect place to do so to maximize consonance.


Just for completeness, here it is in four parts (with a third entrance at the same point in the second voice as where the first voice was when the second entered): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz9oGDhZf6I&list=RDVz9oGDhZf6I&start_radio=1

And here it is in four voices, in two languages no less: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs76DW7bA_g


If something is described as a “round” rather than a “canon”, you can probably bet that it’ll be something simple; many nursery rhymes are written in such a way (I think intentionally, but I’m not sure) that they’re very easily transformed from single melodies into rounds, precisely so that even young kids can start experimenting with imitation.

 


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