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A contrapuntal technique where a melody is imitated exactly by one or more voices entering at staggered time intervals.
Canon is strict imitation — each voice sings the same melody, offset in time. Types include canon at the unison, octave, fifth, or other intervals; retrograde canon (the follower sings the melody backward); and augmentation/diminution canons. Writing canon requires every note to work both as melody and as harmony against the other entries.
Pachelbel's Canon in D — three violins play the same melody in canon over a repeating bass, one of the most famous examples of the technique.
Canon is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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