How to write a Crab Canon

What's a crab canon?

According to wikipedia:

A crab canon—also known by the Latin form of the name, canon cancrizans—is an arrangement of two musical lines that are complementary and backward, similar to a palindrome. Originally it is a musical term for a kind of canon in which one line is reversed in time from the other (e.g. FABACEAE <=> EAECABAF).

Ever since I read about this in the Goedel, Escher, Bach book by Douglas Hofstadter I've had some fascination with this form of music. I've tried to write some but I usually got stuck after about three notes. In some previous articles I discussed how I created a 5-part canon and a 6-part invention using a technique I have invented (or more likely: rediscovered). Now I have extended this technique to create crab canons and palindrome canons et voila! A brand-new no-sweat, no-tears 4-voice palindrome crab-canon in the somewhat exotic meter of 11/4 appears... (why 11/4? Because I can ;) )

You can hear it on Youtube:

or SoundCloud:

The article explaining the full construction of this piece is available for download here. You may have trouble downloading it with some versions of internet explorer. In that case use chrome or firefox instead.

Explanation about technique used in writing my 6-part invention

Download the article by clicking this link. You may have trouble downloading it with some versions of internet explorer. In that case use chrome or firefox instead.

You can hear the result of the tutorial in my previous post.

Tutorial on my technique for writing a canon

I promised to write a tutorial on how to write a canon like the one I posted in my previous post Canon in 5, and I did.

The tutorial is 12 pages long, but most of that space is taken up by white-space and examples. You will probably get the most out of it if you already know how to read music, although strictly speaking it is not a requirement to already benefit from the material in the tutorial.

You can get the tutorial in .pdf format by clicking this link. You may have trouble downloading it with some versions of internet explorer. In that case use chrome or firefox instead.

You can listen to the result of the tutorial here:

Drop me a note if you've been able to use the techniques explained in there.