Four days into the summer, I’ve completed my first piece. Larry Polansky publishes an expanding book of rounds, and for years he’s been bugging me to write one, so I finally did. Dodecaphonically. [UPDATE: Larry’s put a better copy on the web here, and you can also see a lot of the other rounds in his collection.] [MIDI piano version here.]
It’s pretty singable if you don’t try the repeat. [UPDATE: It occurs to me that it would be more consonant and easier to sing if the repeat used P11 (down a half-step), the next repeat P10, and so on. Sort of like “12 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”] [Still other versions could use P10 on the repeat and descend via whole-steps, or repeat with P6. It’s kind of amazingly flexible.]
I feel it’s also a nice mnemonic device.
I’m donating all royalties to the Society for Minimalism Music.